Supply Chain Management Salary in India: For Freshers & Experienced [2024]

“Supply Chain Management” – the term implies a well-organized function of an organization that takes care of end-to-end supply chain tasks from procurement to supply. In reality, the procurement process involves many distinct suppliers selected almost randomly based on their pricing and availability. As a result of this, traditionally, many businesses would make little effort to manage and organize their suppliers or even make efforts to organize their supply chain management strategies. 

However, such an approach towards Supply Chain Management has hurt organizations in more than one ways, including:

• Additional overhead costs associated with communicating with and managing suppliers. 
• Higher costs of resolving quality management issues with suppliers.
• Increased inventory levels in case of undersupply of items.
• Higher logistics cost because of disparate, unorganized suppliers. 
• Lost sales because of late/missed deliveries. 
• Supply chain inflexibility and longer lead times. 

Conversely, many organizations are slowly waking up to these damages and are streamlining and managing their supply chain management to save up on costs and efforts. 

As a result, there is an increased number of requirements for Supply Chain experts in businesses of all shapes and sizes. With more than 12k jobs listed on Naukri.com, more than 8k jobs on LinkedIn, and more than 11k jobs on Monster India, it’s clear that the importance and requirement of Supply Chain Management experts are increasing as we speak. This has had a direct impact on Supply Chain Management salaries in India, too. 

If you’re wondering about the Supply Chain Management salary in India, you’re in the right place. In this article, we’ll look at various salary brackets of Supply Chain Managers in India, what companies and industries are actively hiring for Supply Chain Management, and what skills can you develop to attract higher Supply Chain Management salaries in India. 

Average Supply Chain Management Salary in India

The salary offered to a Supply Chain Manager depends on many factors that we’ll discuss in the rest of the article. But to get this settled, you should know that the average salary of a Supply Chain Management professional in India is around ₹5,83,186. This figure is by no means final, and it varies drastically depending on your experience, expertise, and skills. 

While the above figure is the average salary of Supply Chain Management in India, it should be noted that the salary for freshers in the field of Supply Chain Management is slightly lower than that, at around ₹3,00,000 per year. However, as mentioned earlier, this figure is very much subject to change, and as you gain more experience, you can make salaries worth more than ₹12,00,000 per year even. 

Supply Chain Management Roles and Requirements

The term, and therefore the roles and requirements of, Supply Chain Management easily cover all the activities associated with managing any organization’s procurement, keeping the following goals in mind:

• Reducing costs
• Improving efficiency
• Satisfying customer and business demands

Since there are excessive costs associated with achieving most of the procurement goals, organizations are beginning to hire experts in this field to devise and implement supply chain strategies to tackle both long- and short-term procurement goals and stay compatible with the company’s overall business strategies and vision. 

Once an SCM expert helps with such a strategy, it becomes progressively easier for the organization to make rational and informed decisions regarding things like procuring materials, supplying finished goods, maintaining inventory and a lot more. A well thought out SCM strategy allows organizations to be prepared for the worst, in case something was to go wrong, like suppliers delivering late, or dealing with quality issues, and more. 

Regardless of the industry, domain, or position, a Supply Chain Management professional will have pretty much similar job duties. Here are some key skills required for succeeding in a Supply Chain Management position: 

Communication

Effective communication is one of the most important aspects of any successful Supply Chain Management strategy. Supply Chain Managers need to be able to communicate properly to their team members and different vendors and suppliers they deal with. These communications span from in-person, telephonic to online meetings.

Supply Chain Managers need to negotiate prices while communicating and maintain clear and consistent communication with everyone involved – from vendors to shipping contacts – throughout the procurement lifecycle. Supply Chain Managers must know how to proactively engage suppliers and develop communication channels and solutions that create value while minimizing problems.

Transportation

One of the crucial tasks of the Supply Chain Management function is negotiating rates and contracts with freight forwarders, customs house brokers, shipping lines, warehouse managers, and logistics service providers. In doing so, the important thing is to ensure that all the appropriate compliance measures are met, communicated well, and appropriately documented. 

Planning and Analysis

The responsibility of developing, executing, and maintaining various supply chain strategies is also on the Supply Chain Management function of an organization. This mainly involves overseeing manufacturing operations, analysing the demand vs supply, and forecasting orders to meet customer demands. Supply chain managers must keep resource optimization and cost reductions in their mind while planning any strategy. Supply chain managers also must be hands-on with enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions and warehouse management systems (WMS).

Inventory Control

For supply chain managers with purchasing managers’ duties, Inventory Control is an essential job role. Supply chain managers support business objectives by developing precise metrics and reporting functions. They conduct quality assessment checks and risk assessments on supply trends, product perishability, demand factors and at-risk product mitigation. Using proper inventory reviews and rebalancing efforts, supply chain managers reduce product obsolescence. They must generate scheduled reports for stakeholders, giving them all the necessary actionable data and insights.

Management

Supply chain managers are, at all times, working as a manager in one or the other way. They promote the design, development, and execution of warehouse, distribution, inventory, and logistics solutions and manage labour costs, team productivity, data accuracy, stocking strategies, and more. Management is a key requirement for a promising playing career in Supply Chain Management or for bagging high-end Supply Chain Management salary in India. 

Supply Chain Management Salary in India

According to 6figr, the Supply Chain Management Salary in India, for someone with more than 10 years of experience, is around ₹20,00,000 per year. However, this is the salary offered to someone who can seamlessly handle all the tasks discussed earlier and has enough experience to back his expertise.

That being said, the salary for Supply Chain Management in India for freshers is among the well-paid ones – it lies in the range of ₹400,00 to ₹600,00, depending on your skillset, experience, location, etc.

As you work more in the field of Supply Chain Management and learn more skills, gather more experience – around 3-5 years – the Supply Chain Management salary you’ll then get will be in the range of ₹700,00 to ₹1000,00. It’s only higher up from there!

In this article, we’ll also talk about the different job profiles of Supply Chain Management, the type of industries that hire Supply Chain Managers in India, and some of the companies to look out for if you’re looking for a Supply Chain management job. 

Let’s start with the eligibility to become a Supply Chain Manager.

Eligibility For a Job in Supply Chain Management

We checked the job descriptions of various job offers active on Naukri.com, LinkedIn, and Monster to develop broad eligibility criteria. As you go up the ladder, the eligibility criteria get tricky, and sometimes you might require degrees beyond just a bachelor’s degree. 

Generally, the eligibility criteria for an entry-level job in Supply Chain Management is just graduation in a relevant field. Some companies prefer candidates with a degree specifically in Supply Chain Management or Business Administration. However, that’s usually mentioned in their description. It generally is so for more senior roles in Supply Chain Management. 

Regardless of the academic qualifications or years of experience, there are some skills that you should definitely try to develop if you’re looking for jobs paying a high Supply Chain Management salary in India. Here are some such skills: 

• Problem-solving skills
• Good planning skills
• Networking skills
• Time management skills
• Excellent relationship management skills
• Analytical skills
• IT Skills
• Communication skills
• Negotiation skills

Job Profiles Under Supply Chain Management

Since supply chain management begins from procurement to the delivery of finished goods, it has a lot of moving elements – all equally important. As a result, there are several different job roles available under the Supply Chain Management banner. You can pick one (or multiple) of these specializations if you want to grow in a particular direction, or keep learning about everything slowly if you aspire to grow holistically. Some such profiles available include:

• Warehouse manager
• Logistics manager
• Purchasing manager
• Operations manager
• Operational researcher
• Freight forwarder
• Warehouse manager
• Retail merchandiser
• Production manager
• Distributions manager

Industries and Companies Hiring For Supply Chain Management in India

Most supply chain managers are employed in logistics or transportation companies. However, with time, the requirement has grown and reached multiple different domains, including:

• Construction firms
• Shipping companies
• Transportation
• Warehousing and Distribution unites
• Inventory control unites
• Admin and IT
• Road transport 

Some companies that actively hire for Supply Chain Management role in India include: 

• Future Supply Chain Solutions Ltd.
• TCI Express Ltd.
• VRL Logistics Ltd.
• Mahindra Logistics Ltd. 
• Container Corporation of India Ltd. 

Supply Chain Management Salary Across Different Domains and Companies

The salary range will broadly remain the same, as we had discussed earlier. For exact details, you can check out the job posting pages of the companies mentioned above to get some more idea of exact Supply Chain Management salary in different domains and industries.  

Conclusion

By now, we hope you have a better understanding of Supply Chain Management Salary in India!

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