From SCDigest's On-Target E-Magazine
Aug, 23, 2011
Gartner Methodology for Rating Top Supply Chain Schools may not be Perfect, but is Much Better than US News and World Report's Process, Rutgers' Don Klock Says
Gartner's Use of Survey of Real Supply Chain Professionals is Key, Klock Argues; Many Difference in the Two Top Tens
SCDigest Editorial Staff
When Gartner recently came out with its ranking of the top 20 or so US graduate and undergraduate programs for supply chain/logistics, it generated a lot of debate, as these types of rankings always do, whether from alumni pride, different individual perceptions, or the schools themselves disagreeing with where they were ranked. (See Let the Debate Begin Anew! Gartner Ranks Top Supply Chain University Programs.)
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Klock agrees that one question with the Gartner approach could be what the survey sample population is and if it could have been biased towards certain schools, but he thinks with over 400 respondents that the results are probably pretty fair.
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SCDigest itself was a little surprised at a couple of the rankings in the graduate program area, notably the University of Michigan at number 2 and Rutgers University tied for third place with Michigan State in the Gartner list. Both are fine schools for sure, but usually not, it seems to us, at the top of the conversation list when the top programs are discussed by most supply chain professionals.
Rutgers itself received a few calls from other universities expressing surprise at its placement, says Don Klock, a professor of supply chain management there as well as a former supply chain executive at Colgate-Palmolive.
Klock gave SCDigest a call the other day to discuss the Gartner rankings and methodology, especially in comparison to the existing major ranking of supply chain/logistics programs that comes out each year in US News and World Reports (which ranks collages along many, many dimensions and programs).
"When some of the other programs complain about how things came out this year, I tell them the same thing - everyone had the same chance," Klock told SCDigest.
The Gartner rankings were based on three components:
• The Program's "Value (40%): Has two sub-components - (1) Survey data from some 400 supply chain industry respondents on what programs are "the best," where they recruit from, and other related data; (2) Information from the schools themselves about the number of internships and starting salaries.
• Program Size (20%): Number of professors and students, as reported by the schools themselves
• Program Scope (40%): How well a school covers each of the areas in Gartner's 11 Stage Talent Attribute Model (basically a list of different areas of supply chain knowledge) in its the core curriculum.
Klock understandably likes this approach, given that it led to Rutgers scoring much higher on the Gartner results than in US News and World Report's list, where Rutgers did not make the top 10. However, Klock makes a solid case as to why the Gartner approach is the better one.
 "What I like about this approach is that Gartner is actually asking industry people for real feedback," he says. "With US News and World Report,, all they interact with are Deans of business schools and heads of supply chain programs, not people in the field. Gartner's is the right way to do it."
He says that the only type of external feedback coming from the US World and News Report methodology are "peer group" rankings based on assessments from academics about other programs (15% of the US News scoring), but Klock believes that is not nearly as valuable as input from supply chain professionals, and perhaps subject to some bias from schools that don't want to see rivals score well.
"As a result, the Us News and World Report rankings are really just more of a popularity contest or based on name recognition," Klock contends.
Klock agrees that one question with the Gartner approach could be what the survey sample population is and if it could have been biased towards certain schools, but he thinks with over 400 respondents that the results are probably pretty fair.
(Supply Chain Trends Story Continued Below) |
