CONTEXT

Transitioning to a fully integrated end-to-end supply chain model that can track all operations from receiving supplies to exiting products is mandatory for businesses to innovating, generating value for customers, and hence, remain competitive in the global market. This shift must have new skillset requirements due to the continuous technology developments happening internally and externally allowing the supply chains to be more resilient in meeting economic (e.g. trade tariffs), environmental (e.g. carbon footprint reduction, waste management, water and energy efficiency), social (e.g. bluewashing: modern slavery and human trafficking) and governance challenges (e.g. bribery and corruptions, transparency, compliance). Therefore, it is important to build the technical competencies and expertise, but also to find and attract the right talents to the industry, which led companies to invest time and resources into the human dimension of the supply chain.

Moustafa has lately participated in one of the events organized by Schneider Electric about the SE Global Supply Chain Development Program. He wish to share his experience and some key-elements that hopefully will inspire others to join the program.

IT ALL STARTED FROM LINKEDIN THEN GETHIGHERED

Schneider Electric is the energy management and automation company that has invested 10 Billion euros in innovation and R&D for sustainable development between 2015 & 2025. It is one of the top 5 companies I want to work for, this is why I made sure to connect with some #SEGreatPeople on LinkedIn to follow their activities and to discover more about the company through their own experiences. I did not want to be conventional and directly jump into talking about job opportunities and similar things, instead, I was engaging with their content, also creating pieces of content that may resonate with the SE activities in the hope to get their attention and have some conversation. I also followed their activities and participated in some events and webinars. Among these, I’d like to point out to a specific event about the Schneider Graduate Program for Supply Chain. I heard about it from the different testimonies that have been published on SE's LinekdIn page - Ana's (Ana Tellez) and Erica's (Erica Schuller) were the most exciting ones for me.

I must admit that the organization of the event was great, and the idea of bringing together different people from multiple backgrounds in various stages of the program to talk about their own journey was amazing. It is brilliant way to feel the diversity and to see the multiple opportunities of growth that you may not find elsewhere.

In this blog article I will share with you a summary of the Global Supply Chain program from the event, plus, why and how did I apply for this program and what were the steps I did right after the application to prepare for an eventual interview.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE EVENT & THE PROGRAMME

The event was a unique opportunity to learn about 15+ people's experiences. I had the chance to e-meet and learn from their different career aspects. (HR Team: Yeonjoo Lee who hosted and presented almost all the event, Kelly Li, Edna Lim, Qiu Ting, Pavitha Johnson, Isabelle Villedieu. Speakers: Registered session: Mourad TAMOUD & Laure Collin. Live Session: Anthony Loy, Christophe Prunet, Eziquiel Espina. Ex-Program participants: Maria Gromachenko, Erica Schuller, Kamil Stepien, Selvana Rouman, Murilo Fescina, Threvin Anand), and others.

The HR team has basically presented and answered all questions about SE's culture and ambitions. For those who missed it, I couldn't recommend better than these two videos: Link1 Link2. Then they introduced us to a large panel of professionals to walk us through the Supply Chain of the Future - A SC that is reshaped by AI, data science, and digital transformation, but most importantly by great people who are willing to impact the world. It has started by a global presentation to the programme different stages, as shown below, where I tried to project it to my profile and objectives.

Now that the 2-year program has been presented, we dug deep into the understanding of the Global Supply chain and SE's business model. Different speakers have walked us through the long-term commitments of Schneider, and explained to us the efforts they're making to lead the world to a more sustainable energy. The part that I appreciated the most was that part when Anthony Loy presented the Schneider's decarbonization strategy including the focus on materials (eco-friendly and bio-inspired designs) aith the circular economy efforts to rethink the packaging of products etc, as well as the Zero Carbon Project initiative where Schneider is partnering with the top 1,000 suppliers to help them tackle Scope 3 emissions and cut their carbon footprint in half by 2025.

Afterwards, we met program participants and ex-participants who took time to share with us their background, how and why did they initially join the program. We enjoyed this going-back with some stories and anecdotes about the workplaces and their teammates, how they trusted them since day one, and what were the encountered challenges. They didn't stop here, but they shared with us their career plans and where they're seeing themselves in the few next years.

What I, personally, enjoyed the most, is the diversity of profiles that have been present to share with us all the above. They didn't save anything for themselves, and where looking forward to having us on board. I will join you soon guys, and will be happy to meet you all in person.

On the top of this, I had the chance to e-visit 2 factory plants:

1- SEIPL Smart factory in Hyderabad, India : Parveen Das and many amazing people from the India plant presented us the different departments and projects of the Factory. Personally, I loved the robots lab and how people move over the factory departments - it must be a huge organization.

2- The Lexington Smart factory in US: Michael Labhart, Guillaume Lafforgue, Harry Doxey and many others took the time to answer our questions and present the different section of the factory. Personally, I admired the whole transformational vision of the old factory, and particularly had a "coup de cœur" for the clients' test area - does anyone know why ? I'm confused ! :)

NEWS: Lexington, Kentucky plant has been awarded a Sustainability Lighthouse by World Economic Forum – one of only three globally. Wuxi, China plant has also been recognized as an Advanced Lighthouse, the fourth Schneider Electric factory to receive this recognition. Source: Press Release.

Bonus: Would you like to learn more about the evolution of the SE supply chain over time? I found a presentation where Mourad Tamoud walked us through the different stages of SC development in an exciting way. Check it out here: Link

Go further: Discover the SE supply chain strategy STRIVE - Gartner Top 25 Supply Chain Award 2021. Start from here.

WHY & HOW DID I APPLY?

HOW — I knew that such a company with outstanding values will have a complete different view to candidates’ background. I was sure that less importance will be granted to previous experiences, the background, the origin, and much more to the future, to the vision and to what interests me.

So I tailored my CV based on that; I presented briefly my background and experiences with some links to some resources (website, videos, articles <- a portfolio) if anyone would be interested in getting more information about that, then I directly presented in a friendly visual design: my skills, what interests me in the program, who do I wanted to help, and what’s my global objective. Then in a last part, I wanted to defend my WHY and present my future by summarizing my career objective in some global bullets that represent few possible development paths that I can take. Being agile, I value the importance of team work and continuous learning, so I remain open to any possible challenge for which I can be of an added value to my eventual team members.

Check out my CV below & my Cover Letter here, and don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Disclaimer — Whether my job application will be received, treated and accepted or not, I am really proud of myself for taking the plunge.

WHAT I PREPARED FOR THE NEXT STEP?

Sending such a CV is risky if the SE recruiters use an ATS software, but I dare to disrupt. It's not a fancy CV as you can see, but I made sure to tailore the 1-page space I've given to mention how motivated and determined I am... Plus, I am coming with a flexible career plan! Right after I sent my application, I started preparing for a 30-60-90 days plan to show my engagement and break down my onboarding process, when time comes (wish me bust luck ;) ). Then I quickly realized that such a plan would be, for instance, hardly applicable for new graduates or for the whole program, so instead, I worked hard to design a specific plan tailored to this dev program. I ended up designing my own progress algorithm: LEARN – UNDERSTAND – CONTIBUTE – LEAD.

This wasn't new, but it’s exactly the way I have been engineering the success of all my projects, however, putting it in such a way for such program is new for me. It took me a lot of efforts and drafts to finish up with this so-called progress algorithm, and I am overjoyed to share it with you.

Now all I need is to apply it for the program. Since the program offers a lot of flexibility, and its assignments are not defined from the beginning, I just made sure to pick up 3 disciplines that I already presented in my future development plan on the CV: Quality, Planning, and Business.

Then I tried to break it down into actionable points showcasing, for each assignment, my learning - performance, initiative and personal goals. There are tons of other things that deserve to be mentioned here, but for instance, I prefer to stop it here hoping only to give you an idea about the ways I present, organize, plan and aspire for my future.

At the micro level (at the DP scale), as well as the macro scale (my career at Schneider), this is how I would like to serve the industry; first by improving local operations and increasing the customers satisfaction, second, I’d like to take some responsibility to manage operations and teams towards success, after that, I would like to expand the perimeters of the business and act at large scale with large impact. Finally, to become a Schneider Pioneer #SEGreatPeople.

This was the way I am planning to go through the 2-year program, while being agile and accepting any other assignments. I will tackle them with the same level of organization and enthusiasm.

At the end, all I wish in this blog article is to give you a glimpse about the program, and hopefully motivates you to apply for it. Let's compete over to join the program and contribute in building a sustainable supply chain for SE.

Looking forward to answering all the questions you may have.

Let's get it done !

- by Moustafa Sebaa

This article is subject to be altered and updated

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