A Successful Management Consultant Planning

If you’re interested in how a business works – its strategy, structure, management and operations – a career in management consultancy might be for you. Management consultants help businesses improve their performance and grow by solving problems and finding new and better ways of doing things. It’s not just in the private sector either – many firms work with public sector organisations to help develop their services and, where necessary, reduce costs and make savings.

Consultancy firms offer services across all areas of business – from HR and marketing, to IT and finance. The broad span of consulting work makes it an attractive career, offering a variety of projects, challenges and opportunities for personal development. This might involve working all over the world with multinational clients, even if you don’t join one of the big firms. The biggest consultancies have several hundred or thousands of employees, but there are a growing number of successful niche players across the UK, with between 10 and 100 consultants, who also offer some interesting career opportunities. Lasse Lund, manager in Deloitte’s customer management practice, who won the 2013 performance consultant of the year and overall consultant of the year in the Management Consultancies Association’s (MCA) awards, shared his insights into the job: “I am really fascinated by working with different customers on different projects – and very much enjoy the momentum and excitement we create in the organisations we work with. I like being in the middle of all the different pieces that need to come together. For example, an issue comes up and you think, ‘I haven’t seen that before, I need to pull in the right people from the right teams, I need to put in place the right processes and I need to get the right technology in place to fix that issue.’

“When that’s fixed there will be a new one. The excitement around new projects coming along, as well as learning something new, which in turn makes you better equipped for the next project, is probably what I enjoy most about my job and one of the things I enjoy about being a consultant.”

There is no set career path into the industry, although many of the large consultancy firms actively recruit graduates straight from university. An aptitude for client handling, listening, strategic planning, business analysis, and team-building are attractive to consulting employers, as is creativity, flexibility, and strong interpersonal skills. For some firms, an individual with an MBA or an MSc will be of great interest – but they are by no means universally required. Similarly, degrees in business may be a benefit, but generally, consultancy is not a degree-specific industry. There’s plenty of scope for personal development, expanding your skillset, and enhancing your CV. Most consultancies offer excellent training opportunities, along with the chance to build other skills. As client work becomes more international, firms are beginning to operate on a European and global basis, so there’s plenty of scope for travel. On the flip side of this, long hours are common. Consultancy is not your average 9-5 job: you can spend a considerable amount of time away from home. For a lot of consulting jobs you must be mobile, so it’s important that you’re flexible. Most of the larger employers have their head offices in London with a few regional offices, but because work for clients is primarily on-site, location is rapidly becoming less important. The demands of consultancy often mean meeting tough targets on time. The majority of work is client-facing and you will be under pressure to deliver – if you’re the shy and retiring type, this is probably not a good career for you. Despite the intensity, however, there’s a big emphasis on work-life balance. Firms are highly competitive with each other because everyone wants the biggest projects and the best people. Plus a lot of consulting firms are really big on community and social affairs, helping their people achieve things in their personal life, local communities and other worthwhile causes.

What do management consultants actually do?

The core work of a management consultant tends to fall within one or more of these three categories:

• Functional Expertise and Specializations. Management consultants provide industry counsel, advice and functional expertise in specialized areas such as strategy, mergers, governance, reorganizations, organization design, strategic leadership, operations, finance, risk management, digital transformation, information technology, organizational change management, organization development, human resources, talent management, advertising, and marketing to name a few.
• Objective Analyses and Assessments. A management consultant serves as an objective third party to conduct in-depth research and analysis and then provides an unbiased opinion and perspective on difficult matters and complex business problems and issues.
• Project Management. Management consultants work directly with senior leadership and internal project teams to deliver hands-on project management and leadership consulting to include project implementation, execution and measurement.

What distinguishes highly successful management consultants from the rest?

It’s been my experience that the mindset of a management consultant makes all the difference. Whether it’s from my own management consulting experiences or the success—or lack thereof—of those I’ve worked with or hired, it is abundantly clear that the mindset you have for this kind of work is critical. The best management consultants are those who have a propensity for strategic thinking and a bent toward statistical analysis, critical thinking and process improvement. Management consultants who are best at analyzing issues, diagnosing problems, executing substantial interventions and designing focused solutions are those who:

• are strategic thinkers with an ability to focus on the whole system and consider the interconnections and interdependencies within it.
• help other leaders and teams to not only define what success looks like but also to ascertain whether operational capacity exists to deliver it.
• apply a process-improvement mindset and methodology so as to effectively solve problems but also to evaluate the systems and processes beyond it to limit the likelihood of unintended negative consequences or experiencing long-term harm down the line.
• comprehend the full scope of strategy and ensure the right strategic outcomes are defined, and then lead navigational efforts to help execute and measure the results.
• have deep understanding of performance metrics and are able to define which data align with which metrics, how to turn the data into actionable intelligence that decision makers can use and how, and in what format, the information should best be communicated.

What education and experience do you need to become a management consultant?

The education and experience requirements vary depending on which level of management consulting you work in or seek to occupy. In general, there are basically four different categories on the career ladder. Within my firm, we hire in at the first three levels. Regardless of whether you work for a large or small firm, the consulting level you end up in will depend largely on your education and experience and then your competence. The first consulting level is entry level, and it’s typically a business analyst or associate consultant role and usually requires an undergraduate degree with very little (if any) experience. The second level tends to be known as the actual management consultant level. My firm requires an undergraduate degree and four years of consulting experience or a graduate degree and two years of consulting experience for this management consulting level.

• The third level is what’s known in the industry as a senior consultant or project lead. It usually requires the equivalent of a graduate degree and seven years of experience or an undergraduate degree and 10 years of direct consulting experience.
• The fourth level is a partner or principal, and this level usually calls for a graduate degree and more than 10 years of directly-related consulting experience.

While I focused here on the most common management consulting jobs where a degree tends to be a minimum requirement, it should be noted that not all consulting jobs require a college degree. Some organizations will permit individuals to substitute relevant work experience in lieu of a degree, and there are also many other types of consulting jobs where college may not carry the same weight. There are entrepreneurs who have started consulting businesses without a college degree as well. The college degree requirement, however, is more of a factor with traditional consulting organizations where the official work is that of a specialized management consultant or strategy consultant.

What skills and expertise do you need to succeed as a management consultant?

The required skillset varies depending on the different industries and the specific client base that a particular management consulting firm targets and works with. But you should know that you will be expected to finely tune your functional expertise and specializations (see above) around your assigned industries, and you’ll be expected to develop your skills and expertise in any area where you want to deliver consulting services and strategic advice. The higher up the career ladder you go, the stronger skillset you need to have and the more you need to know. To reiterate, management consulting work typically requires extensive travel, lots of time with clients and—even still—lots of additional time processing and analyzing work even when you aren’t with clients. In addition to specialized expertise, you will also need many of the following skills, and these will vary depending on the consulting level.

Courtesy: management consultant in Australia