“Your Career Advisor” is responding this week to:

( 1 ) "Can you advise a Procurement Analyst?" c
( 2 ) "Where to prepare for CFA and CFP certifications?" d
( 3 ) "Are there differences between an Executive and a Senior?" c
( 4 ) "What is corporate governance?" h

All reasonable questions related to careers, skill development or employment related issues – sent to advisor@skill-link.com - would be addressed in this section every week.

Q1: Can you advise a Procurement Analyst?

It will much appreciate if you provide me with sufficient answers to my questions or let say worries.

I am a 25 female graduated from a Faculty of Arts' English Department with a fluent pronunciation and language skills.

I have worked in several jobs even before graduating, I worked as a flight attendant and as a HR assistant before finally assuming my current job of 'procurement analyst' in a multinational industrial company in Egypt.

I feel it is the nearest job to my character and skills. I do a great effort in developing the supply chain department and the departmental output. My problem is that I feel I am not paid well in accordance to my effort and output for these 2 years I spent on that job. I am promised a promotion by next year but I don't feel this is guaranteed.

My question is how much would a procurement assistant be paid with the same experience I have and how much would a procurement supervisor be paid?

2nd question: Should I continue with my current employer or shall I start looking for a job somewhere else specially after they promoted a colleague who joined the company after me, based on personal relations and based on her efficiency

3rd question: Why are there very few vacancies in the field of supply chain in Egypt ?

4th question: Where can I find special courses in this field to develop my skills to management level?

Your advice will be of great help for me to decide my career path.

A. E. (Egypt)

Replying:

Dear Ms. E.

This is a long question J

You raise a number of issues some are subjective and other objective, let us start:

Procurement Assistant is not a clearly defined job, with commonly agreed upon job responsibilities and tasks. In other words, it can differ from one company to the other… For instance it can designate in one place 'someone who files purchase requests, follows up with suppliers and does related administrative work', while in another company it can be for 'someone who has significant responsibilities for a certain categories of products/services procurement… looking after supplier identification, price / quality comparison, initiating purchase orders, following up on deliver etc…'. Obviously, while carrying the same title, the compensation of the second person should be higher than the first one. You did not describe to us in details what is it you do and what you are responsible for… also, how much supervision do you require (or how much autonomy do you have). Without this information, it is difficult to provide you with a meaningful salary range. If we are to broadly address the salary issue, for someone with 2 years of experience in procurement in a multinational, it would be anywhere from LE 1,500 to LE 2,500 a month. Again, you should have provided with details about your responsibilities.

Second question: Can we advise you about staying or leaving your current employer ? no, we cannot… because again, you did not tell us if overall you are happy there… is the environment professional and friendly or not ? do you feel appreciated ? are you learning new things ? is your current salary and associated benefits reasonable ? without having information on these job dimensions we cannot really tell you much.

On the other hand, the promotion of a colleague is a very subjective topic… maybe management see her more qualified ?! Give them the benefit of the doubt, it does not matter who joined when… it all has to do with the perception (of management) of who can assume more responsibilities and deliver results… While, it may be very obvious that she does not deserve the promotion, there is still a probability that you are biased towards yourself… did you discuss the issue with your manager ?

Third question: Who said there are very little vacancies in supply chain management in Egypt ? first of all it may not be called supply chain management in all companies, some organizations use "procurement", "material management", "logistics" etc.. to refer to the same thing… In most companies, the staffing of these functions could be around 5% of staff (or less)… hence it is normal that the vacancies available reflect that same percentage. skill-link.com has today 2 or 3 vacancies in that same function for a food manufacturer and an engineering products company… So, in other words you are not in an isolated field.

Fourth question: with regards to skill development, the possibilities are unlimited. There are opportunities in job specific areas (in your case: procurement and logistics), communication skills (business writing, presentations, negotiations) and management skills (supervision, managing others, planning, project management etc…). Add to this, general business skills (such as a business diploma or an MBA). You may appreciate that to address each of these areas would need pages and pages… skill-link.com's 'Interest Zone' frequently present some courses, for instance, as we speak, the 'Interest Zone' reports on a forthcoming course in Cairo on Business Process Re engineering, this can prove useful. So, where to look ? a number of the following entities have interesting offerings, you should try and obtain their course schedules:

• The American University's CACE (Center for Adult & Continuing Education)
• LOGIC Training
• The German Arab Chamber of Commerce (FORMAT training unit)
• The American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) training unit
• RITI (Regional Information Technology Institute), they offer courses in technology, business and project management, in addition to MBA and Masters programs.

Most of the above, have web sites to check their course offerings.

While some of the above, may offer from time to time courses related to supply chain management, you may wish to get books on the matter to read on your own. Additionally, some US and European entities, offer distance learning courses and certifications in that area. As a sample, you may want to check the web site: www.supplychaineducation.com 

We hope the above was of some use to you.

Good Luck

Q2: Where to prepare for CFA and CFP certifications?

Could you please advise me about the centers in Cairo that provide CFA instruction course.

What about the CFP certificate in Egypt there is any center provide martial and instruction.

W. T. (Cairo)

Replying:

Dear Mr. T.

The two most likely entities to offer preparation courses would be the American University in Cairo's Center for Adult & Continuous Education (they offer CFA and other similar certification preparation) and the American Chamber of Commerce's training unit.

The CFA (Certified Financial Analyst) is relatively more popular in Egypt. A number of Egyptians, mainly working in the investment and capital markets field, enroll in the program. Many of them order the books from the US and through self study prepare themselves for the certification exams without attending preparation courses.

The CFP (Certified Financial Planner), we should warn you, is of little relevance to the Egyptian market. It addresses issues that are very US specific, in the areas of taxation, insurance, estate (tarekat) etc..

We hope the above was of some use to you.

Good Luck

Q3: Are there differences between an Executive and a Senior?

I am a Senior Secretary and we have other two they are Executive Secretaries what I would like to know is there a difference between Senior and Executive Secretary and I will also would like to know if I should be underpaid because we are not on the same level they are above me, so I feel that I have been underpaid according to my responsibilities.

Your advice is highly appreciated.

M. E. T. (undisclosed)

Replying:

Dear T.

This is one of those brief messages, lacking lots of useful information that would help formulate a good reply and provide objective input. For instance, you did not tell us what country you are from, what sort of company you work for, how your duties and responsibilities differ (if any from the Executive Secretaries), what sort of salary difference there is etc…

Any how, a secretary's job is more or less the same, however the level or responsibility, complexity and experience may differ (for example between the secretary of the Administrative Services Department and that of the Secretary of the Managing Director of a bank). Hence in medium sized and large organizations, we may find a differentiation between the grades/levels of secretaries according to the experience level / skills / maturity required. In some entities we may find Secretary I, Secretary II and Secretary III … in others, which is probably your case there may be Secretary, Senior Secretary, Executive Secretary etc.. So it is normal.. and it does exist in other functions (eg. Analysts, Accountants, Software Developers etc…). Where you should start worrying is when you believe your job and your experience / skills / responsibilities are identical to others with a more senior title… here you may wish to seek clarifications from your boss or the Head of Human Resources.

We hope the above was of some use to you.

Good Luck

Q4: What is corporate governance?

Lately, I have been hearing, or rather reading, more and more about the term 'corporate governance'. I think in Arabic they refer to it as 'hawkama' and 'hokm rashid'. Could you tell me what is it exactly ?

N. M. (Alexandria)

Replying:

Dear Ms. M.

You are correct, it is a concept that has emerged to the limelight only in the last few years. The Arabic language does not have one word to translate it, hence a number of 'inventions' have appeared in the last couple of years to refer to corporate governance. The two you mentioned are used… others less used include: 'hakemeya' etc…

Corporate governance refers to the relationship of a company to its shareholders or, more broadly, as its relationship to society, it is about promoting corporate fairness, transparency and accountability. More specifically, "Corporate governance is the system by which business corporations are directed and controlled. The corporate governance structure specifies the distribution of rights and responsibilities among different participants in the corporation, such as, the board, managers, shareholders and other stakeholders, and spells out the rules and procedures for making decisions on corporate affairs. By doing this, it also provides the structure through which the company objectives are set, and the means of attaining those objectives and monitoring performance.

We hope the above was of some use to you.

Good Luck

Note from the editor: 
Employer names and inquiry sender names were withheld for confidentiality

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