Dive Brief:
- A survey of Women in Supply Chain along with AWESOME, an executive women’s leadership group, found a gap in the numbers of women in supply chain leadership roles.
- The survey found many companies don’t actively recruit or promote women in supply chain departments and that women are an untapped leadership resource for supply chain innovation.
- On the positive side, however, the numbers are moving in the right direction — although as the corporate ladder steepens, so do the percentage of women at each level.
Dive Insight:
Dynamic markets require dynamic change and developing fresh talent to respond to these changes is becoming increasingly important to business success.
Diversity in the workplace is one way to ensure more talent is kept by bringing in a wider variety of perspectives, and the survey claims women can contribute greatly to both client and talent retention efforts.
An additional study by SCM World found that 75% of women and 64% of men think "women’s natural skills differ from men" — and 96% of women and 74% of men think those differences "give women an advantage in supply chain management."
In addition, a Catalyst report suggests companies with higher representation of women at the board of directors level showed at least 40% higher returns on equity, sales and invested capital. However, a wide gap still exists between the theory and the practice of women in leadership within the supply chain: although 35% of the workforce consists of women, only 5% of senior positions belong to women
