The Grand Blue-Sky "Strategy" Consulting
Telling a CEO what they should do to save (or future-proof) their business. Helping a big consumer product goods (CPG) company figure out who to target (which customer segment). Figuring out how a new technology startup should launch their first product to maximize revenue within 5 years (go-to-market strategy).
If you’ve done a few case interviews, you’ll be familiar with these scenarios. It’s the stereotypical “big problem-solving” that most people think of when they hear the names of McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Bain (collectively known as MBB for those wanting to sound in the know).
Strategy is a pet favorite for consultants - and perhaps most people in business. No one wants to be accused of not having a strategy for what they’re doing, and everyone thinks strategy signals smartness. But what is strategy? This nebulous term gets thrown around so much, its meaning is truly diluted. (Hey, much like the term “consulting” - but we’ll get to that another time. [link to another blog])
Let’s try an analogy. You have a mission: to obtain the Golden Fleece hanging on a sacred oak tree in a place called Clochis. (Yeah, I guess that makes you Jason who was raised by a centaur.) Your (initial) strategy may be: impress and please King Aeetes, who owns the fleece, such that he is willing to grant your request to borrow it. Notice how forming a strategy is actually a very small part of completing your missing; there’s a lot of work to do to actually implement the strategy - that’s the execution part nobody likes!
So you execute: you recruit a ton of strong, able-bodied men called the Argonauts; you rally them to build a giant boat so you can all set sail; you sail to Clochis. Wooing King Aeetes doesn’t go so well, and King Aeetes sets you, Jason, additional tasks to complete. At this point, your strategy has to be revised. Your updated strategy reads something like: complete tasks satisfactorily, and claim your promised reward of the Golden Fleece, sail back Iolcus, rub it in your uncle Pelias’ face and claim the throne.
Your strategy is your plan. Having a plan doesn’t mean you’ll be successful; in fact, it’s only a very small part of accomplishing what you want to accomplish. From time to time, you need to revise your strategy - at least, if you’re paying attention to signals and being responsive to changing conditions. The reason why so many people love the word strategy is because it implies that you’re smart (much like the letters PhD do). Doesn’t everyone want to be considered smart (including by themselves!)?
The truth is there is only so much “strategy work” to go around. What most people - and companies - struggle with is finding good, reliable executors. Doing is so much less sexy than being smart and setting the strategy, but it arguably makes a bigger difference to the outcome. (That one is up for debate. Lots of great ideas don’t materialize because the execution falls short, whereas lots of aimless wanderers still end up doing okay. But we digress further…)
The upside of strategy work, especially if you work in consulting, is that often you aren’t around to see how the strategy plays out. Which means, you get to chart the course and decide how to approach something, but you never actually get feedback on whether or not your initial plan was a good one. Did the sailors have to course correct along the way? Did they run into a massive rock you weren’t able to foresee, leading to a shipwreck and much loss? You, the consultant, have no idea. You dusted off your hands once you handed over the multi-slide deck that contained the strategy, walked away and considered your project a success.
Keywords for this type of coveted high-brow strategy work:
High-level decision-making
Long-term planning
Market research and data analysis
Problem-solving
Innovation
What’s in a day?
You may travel all over the place so that you can physically go into your client’s office(s). If so, the traditional travel model is heading to some mid-level hotel near the client’s site Sunday night or Monday morning, and returning home Thursday evening. Your days will almost inevitably involve:
Meeting with clients, either to give your main client updates, or talking with selected colleagues who have been chosen to give you their perspective on what’s faulty and amiss, what needs to be done, what their pain points are, etc. (this is usually called something like “internal stakeholder interview”)
Putting everything you’ve learned on PowerPoint slides (remember, if it doesn’t exist on a slide, it doesn’t exist at all)
Depending on the nature of the project, your days may also involve:
Secondary market research - going through databases, lots of Google searches, etc.
Searching for and scheduling calls with credible people in the client’s industry to interview, either for context on the industry, or for external perspectives on the client (these folks may be called KOLs, short for Key Opinion Leaders, or SMEs, short for Subject Matter Experts)
Talking to the KOLs/SMEs that have agreed to talk to you, furiously taking notes (essentially transcribing) the whole time
Building and refining some sort of forecast model in Excel