Corporate Strategy Consultant

A Consultant is someone who evaluates a situation and offers solutions to a given problem. Corporate Strategy Consultants focus their problem solving skills on formulating business plans, policies, procedures, or changes. Corporate Strategy Consultants are useful because they can offer a fresh, unbiased view of a situation. So, if you’re a Corporate Strategy Consultant, companies call you in to figure out issues that they can’t solve internally, be it due to staff restrictions or internal politics. Your work could involve everything from helping a company decide if they should enter into a new market, or evaluating if they need to downsize.

When you are selected for a job, you interview employees, evaluate processes, analyze schedules, budgets, and policies, identify the problem, and create a solution. You ask a lot of questions. You listen to the answers, but you also read between the lines to get to the core of whatever problem you were hired to solve. When you find the problem and figure out the solution, you teach, train, and guide staff until they understand the techniques and become self-sufficient in the process.

For example, at ABC Manufacturing the production department is lagging behind, leaving the packaging department nothing to do. You are hired to figure out a solution to increase production. After evaluating the manufacturing process, you notice that the hang-up is actually due to an inspection process that delays the product’s arrival to packaging. You then recommend how to improve that inspection process to erase the delay.

This is a production-based illustration, but there are many areas where you provide the same service. A few examples include interpersonal disagreements, budgetary dilemmas, trade and shipping issues, or failure to achieve company goals.

Corporate strategy consulting is a big field, and titles vary from industry to industry. But in whichever industry you practice, this is generally not an in-house position. You normally work for a consulting firm or as a sole proprietor and are hired on a per-project basis.