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Alumni Success Story - Óscar Rodríguez, MDSC 2007
Graduate of the ZLC Master’s in Logistics, Class of 2006/2007. He completed his studies working for Cummins in Belgium. In 2015, Óscar Rodríguez returned to Spain to work as Shopping Experience Manager at Amazon.
“The opportunity to work with people from different cultures and professional backgrounds always helps you grow as a person.”
After working for almost three years as a Business Analyst–Project Manager at Cummins Inc. in Belgium, you faced the challenge of joining Amazon as part of the Shopping Effort Reduction Team. What is it like to work with multidisciplinary teams?
I would describe it in one word: enriching. Working in international companies with multidisciplinary teams forces you to keep an open mind; you can’t work thinking only about your department or your own goals. You must consider the impact your activities and tasks have on other teams. It’s a simplified version of the supply chain: all departments and areas are connected and influence each other in one way or another.
Moreover, the opportunity to work with people from different cultures and backgrounds always helps you grow as a person.
With extensive experience in the logistics sector and global project management in several countries, what needs do you see in the industry?
There is a strong need for supply chain experts. The current job market and the way many positions and companies are structured tend to lead to specialization in a single area of the supply chain (for example, Procurement, Warehousing, Sales, etc.). However, I believe the market needs professionals willing to become true supply chain experts, those who work across different departments to gain hands-on experience and, therefore, truly understand the processes in all areas, enabling them to identify improvement opportunities.
Where do you think the new challenges for the logistics field lie, and how can they be achieved?
I believe the main challenges will be adaptability and growth, both achievable through investment, but investment understood as R&D and innovation. Companies must manage their resources carefully and get the most out of their investments, which can only be achieved through careful analysis of process flows (process reengineering), cost analysis, understanding customer needs and expectations, and identifying which actions and/or services truly add value to the customer (Value Stream Map).
How important do you consider continuous education for your current role in a distribution giant like Amazon?
It’s essential to stay up to date, whether through a master’s or MBA program, or with specific training such as Project Management, Six Sigma, or APICS. In addition, participation in conferences, forums, or specialized journals is also important; only then can the concept of benchmarking truly be applied. This, in turn, helps us bring new ideas and innovation to our workplaces.
