Strategy Consulting : A Career Focused With Maximizing Profits For Business

There are a gazillion companies out there, but some stand out. Whether it is because of their popularity, affiliations, history, profile or service, one factor simply makes or breaks a company; it’s strategy management process.

‘Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term, which achieves advantage in a changing environment through it’

There has been a large amount of research into what strategy is, since Michael Porter’s perennial work in the 1980s. Studies done on the execution of strategy have been far less numerous. However, there is one major understanding about the execution of strategy. The execution of strategy is a vital part of success in business. A summary of many myths surrounding various strategic executions will be outlined, along with their subsequent analyses.

The Business Strategy and Policy course relies on conceptual and analytical skills to examine the challenges of firms. We apply and integrate analytical techniques from accounting, finance, management, marketing, economics, and related business disciplines. Two capabilities are of particular importance: (1) the ability to critically evaluate the profit potential of industries or environments and deal with the threats and opportunities presented by each; and (2) an

Strategy is a set of complicated tactics formulated by the executives of a company directed towards the achievement of company’s goal (Salmela, 2002). It is about all the path ways that a company would follow to reach its ultimate goal. It is a company’s strategy which helps to identify what it does better than the other companies in the industries, which may be different from what it does best. For successful strategy formulation and implementation, a company should know the needs of customers and should have knowledge of its competitors. Through a good strategy a company would identify that opportunity which makes it different from the others (Thompson, 2005).

As a senior at Babson College concentrating in Business Analytics and heavily interested in data-driven decision-making, I am thrilled to apply to West Monroe’s Advanced Analytics Consultant positon. Last year, I had the opportunity to research, collect primary and secondary data, and make business decisions when I participated in Babson’s Management Consulting Field Experience. My team, comprised of five highly motivated Babson undergraduates and a graduate student project leader, was able to create a blueprint for a crowdsourcing platform that would help our client, Clarkston Consulting, with its innovation methodology. In the span of three months, our team identified a target market, determined product features, and designed the platform. Through this project, I strengthened my communication skills as I worked with my team, project leader, and also a high-profile client. Further, my passion research and data analytics was reinforced as I utilized the tools taught in my classes in the real-world project. Along with this experience as a consultant, I am

The assortment of career choices and educational options in the business world cover a wealth of abilities and skills. A logistics expert probably wouldn't fit in a marketing department, nor would a risk manager feel comfortable in sales. When you are looking at business as a whole, it is best to evaluate the opportunities based on what you think your personal strengths are. Here are some examples of how to align your personal attributes with potential business careers.

How to Compete on Analytics    Thomas Davenport describes the prerequisites and the five stages of analytic  competitiveness    By Alison Bolen     Thomas Davenport's article "Competing on Analytics" was the best‐selling Harvard  Business Review reprint in 2006. To write it, Davenport,The President's Distinguished  Professor in Management and Information Technology at Babson College, studied the  characteristics of more than 50 leading organizations that have made a commitment to  quantitative, fact‐based analysis.    Why is the January 2006 Harvard Business Review article so popular? We recently asked  the author and educator that question and discussed further insights from his research  that will be detailed in his new book, Competing

Strategy does not end with formulation and implementation. It is constantly evolving and being analyzed for effectiveness and measured to ensure it is continuing to meet the original intent of the organization. Some of the means used to measure strategy include financial ratios, market analysis, and balance scorecards. (Strategy as Work-in-Progress: Keep Looking Ahead) Of these, financial ratios are important but tend to review strategy in a historical sense whereas the balanced score card has the ability to look at how the customer perceives you and what must be done to excel in the industry. (Strategy as Work-in-Progress: Keep Looking Ahead)

Within the Four Pillars of Analytical Competition as described by Davenport and Harris (2007), TMNAS has varying degrees of success as well as failure. The authors describe these pillars as pivotal to ability of any organization to successfully develop in to analytical competitors. The first of these pillars is labeled Support of Strategic, Distinctive Capability (p. 24). Although TMNAS has identified its strategic capability as delivering “…efficiencies and cost savings through the streamlining of processes…” (Overview 2015), it has been not examined as a viable capability to leverage in terms of Competitive Analytics. Furthermore, given the distinct nature of TMNAS, it stands to reason that the organization may elect to take a back seat to the group companies as far as identifying a strategic capability. In examining the company’s position as a services organization, it may behoove the company to play a support role to the group companies and their front office functions in fostering the identification of strategic and distinctive capabilities. Additionally, it could fall on the members of TMNAS IT to support the spread of competitive analytics within each of its sister companies. TMNAS has not contributed to or fostered this step on the road to analytics within the group companies therefore its position within this pillar of analytics competition requires more attention and resources.

The first step to analyse strategy is to perform a SWOT analysis. As Daft and Marcic (2011) believe “Formulating strategy often begins with an assessment of the internal and external factors that will affect the organisation’s competitive situation.” (Daft and Marcic, 2011, p.155). So this is where I will begin the analysis.

An organisation’s strategy plays an important role of providing direction of where company wants to be and how best to allocate the company’s resources to meet its objectives. The formulation of business strategies has evolved over the years and has been made more difficult in recent by the uncertain operating environments and global financial crises.

This section very briefly describes several key tools that can be used during the course of strategy development and strategic planning. The list is not intended to be comprehensive but to illustrate the types of tools

“Competing on Analytics” defines an analytical competitor “as an organization that uses analytics extensively and systematically to outthink and out execute the competition.”(1) Business analytics is a new way for companies to separate themselves from their competitors. I recently completed an internship at the firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and will work there full-time upon completion of this program. PwC uses analytics to help solve complex business issues and to identify opportunities across different industries. PwC is the largest professional service company in the world and is part of the Big Four accounting firms. PwC operates in over 157 countries with more than 750 offices throughout the world.(2) PwC is structured into three service lines, which are Assurance, Advisory and Tax. The assurance practice audits almost 30% of the global fortune 500 companies.(2) The advisory practice is mainly consulting activities that cover strategy, cyber security and privacy, human resources, deals and forensics. (2) These three practices generated $35.4 billion in revenue in 2015. (2)

A strategy is said to be a plan that is made for the long term success of a product or brand. It is extremely important to have a strategy in order to figure out a direction towards which any company is able to focus all its resources efficiently and achieve desired outcomes. Formulating effective strategies is a considerably long process in itself that combines analysing several factors, situations and issues that are already present in a company and looking to improve on them alongside trying to implement various innovations and ideas to collectively create a direction towards which they can move and direct the resources available to them.