What is the difference between management consulting and strategy consulting?

When I had just started my Consulting career, I only wanted to do “Strategy” projects and in fact, I was aligned to the Strategy & Operations team in a leading Big-4 Consulting firm. It just seemed more glamorous and people in Strategy teams seemed to have a chip on their shoulder.

What I quickly realized was, that each project is a blend of the following 3 types of engagements and the work that you do can span various engagement types, be it for the same or multiple clients. In fact, getting experience across all 3 types of these engagements can make you a much better consultant and trusted advisor.
Projects in Management Consulting vary depending upon the Industry and Client and typically fall into 3 buckets:

Note that I have not included implementation projects here. In my opinion, Consulting firms usually own the areas of defining the strategy and following it up with a detailed roadmap for implementation. It is then up to the IBMs of the world to implement the software, be it a payments automation system or ERP.

While there are differences in the work delivered across these project types, they usually have 3 things in common:

1. Address a problem:
All MC projects originate from a problem or gap in the client’s operations, processes, cost, controls, regulatory compliance, etc. Bottom line - MC engagements address and provide a solution for business problems.

2. Time-bound:
A typical Strategy project lasts about 6 to 8 weeks. Mergers & Acquisitions strategy engagements are even shorter on account of the secrecy involved. MC projects can be longer if they have an implementation element (e.g. ERP implementation, Cloud Strategy, Data strategy for regulatory compliance). Shorter projects focused on Strategy are usually more fast-paced than longer duration implementation projects

3. Action plan:
Most MC engagements wrap up by providing the final strategy and at the very least, the key action items and a roadmap for solving the (usually long-run) business issue.

Team Structure:

Management Consulting projects tend to have lean teams as the intention is to quickly understand the pain-points of the business and provide a strategy that can be implemented by Client staff. The typical ratio of junior staff to Managers is ~4:1 but may vary depending upon Client demand.

Project Life Cycle: Strategy engagements

1. Partner / Director sells project at client—> BRING TOGETHER A TEAM (you may or may not have worked with them before)

2. The team starts Week 1 (or Phase 0 ) at client site - This usually involves conducting kick-off workshops to understand the business and gather information on pain-points/ challenges/ gaps from key stakeholders

3. Week 2 to 4 - The team does more research into the details of the gap/ issue by conducting more 1-on-1 interviews (usually with people who attended the workshops in Week 1), meetings, Activity Analysis,s surveys, etc.

4. Week 4 to 5 - The team presents initial findings to junior stakeholders and incorporates feedback. In some cases, they may need to go back to the drawing board and tweak the strategy

5. Week 6 - Team (usually Manager/Senior Manager and Partner/Director) present final strategy to Executives

Transformation engagements:

These differ from Strategy engagements in that they are mostly related to changing the business operations of large organizations - usually on a global scale. These may run Long term (months to years) and in phases, usually replicating the same approach across multiple geographies. Examples include standardization of business processes, centralization of operations, implementation of an ERP system globally, etc.

Change management / Program Management engagements:

These engagements run in parallel to large scale transformation or regulatory compliance projects. The need for a Program Management engagement stems out of the requirement to track and report on the multiple projects/ workstreams running under the overall engagement/ program.

People tend to dismiss project management engagements as status reporting, but these are high visibility engagements with exposure to the C-suite and are crucial to the success of large scale transformation programs. In fact, project management is a top skill for senior consultants and executives alike.

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Got more questions on Consulting? Comment below or email me at punya@byondgood.com.
Punya is a former management consultant with 15 years of experience at 2 Big4 firms, serving top Fortune500 clients. She has lived and worked in 6 countries and changed 3 careers working across several industries. Punya is passionate about coaching new and aspiring Consultants to succeed in Management Consulting.