The Marquette University Graduate School of Management is pleased to offer a new two-year master’s degree in supply chain management, starting fall 2018. The 31-credit program is designed for high-quality professional students who seek to grow their skills and develop effective, ethically based management techniques. The Master of Supply Chain Management program will be conveniently delivered online with the academic rigor students expect from Marquette University. The online delivery will be complemented with brief face-to-face residential workshops held at the beginning, middle and end of the program.
Marquette’s highly respected supply chain management faculty members developed the program with their industry partners in response to a significant and growing shortage of junior and middle supply chain managers, particularly industry professionals with three to five years of experience.
“We have seen how industry has begun to shift with the emergence of Industry 4.0 and digital supply chains,” said Dr. Mark Barratt, associate professor of supply chain management and program faculty director. “This shift, coupled with the growing skills gap arising from the retirement of many senior and middle supply chain professionals, prompted the need for a program that addresses both issues.”
“When we talked to the industry professionals on our advisory board, and they consistently and unanimously challenged us to push forward on a master’s program to meet this very real skills gap among supply chain managers nationwide,” said Dr. Doug Fisher, assistant professor of supply chain management and director of the Center for Supply Chain Management. “With our nationally ranked undergraduate program, stellar bench of faculty and our strategic location in southeastern Wisconsin where we have the second highest concentration of manufacturing in the U.S., Marquette had the infrastructure in place to launch this important graduate degree offering.”
Marquette’s undergraduate supply chain management program and Center for Supply Chain Management is currently ranked 14th nationally by U.S. News and World Report, 15th nationally by SCM World, and 23rd nationally by Gartner, Inc.
The outlook for graduates with a master’s degree in supply chain management is incredibly positive, Barratt says. According to a 2016 Gartner, Inc. survey of North American supply chain graduate programs, 79 percent of graduates are placed before graduation and 95 percent are placed within three months of graduating. Further, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has projected 22-percent job growth in supply chain overall from 2012–22.
The Marquette Master of Supply Chain Management program will have a specific emphasis on preparing students to lead their firms’ transition from the physical to the digital supply chain world, a focus Barratt says is also in high demand.
According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., a Chicago-based executive outplacement firm, “Supply chain management is a high-growth area, in part, because the new economy — with people shopping more online and less in stores — has shifted the responsibility for how goods are delivered, but also because the growth in the use of Internet of Things technology, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, has increased the need for people who can manage that information.”
The first graduate degree cohorts will begin in fall 2018 and are scheduled to graduate in the spring of their second year. View more information on the Master of Science in Supply Chain Management.