Are you looking for a professional business consultant to help bring your company to the next level? It’s not as simple as typing into Google ‘business consultant’. There are different types of business consultants, each beneficial depending on what you need them to do. With consultants, you want to go with someone who has the experience and expert advice.
Here are the eleven types of business consultants, each serving their unique niche in business management.
Type #1: Business strategy consultants
Chances are, if you want a general business consultant, you’re looking for someone to help with strategy and in providing advice on your direction.
A business strategy consultant can help to develop long-term vision and business trajectory, provide advice on how to allocate resources when entering a new or foreign market, and more. Strategy consultants should be experienced specifically in your sector of business.
Type #2: Financial advisory consultants
Any business wants to make the most informed financial decision however even so, there are numerous variables to account for. A financial advisory consultant can help, providing guidance on corporate finance, transaction services, restructuring, risk management, forensics and litigation, and real estate.
A financial advisory consultant may also work to reduce your tax bill, improve cash flow, and identify investment opportunities that are low-risk and high-return.
Type #3: Operations consultants
An operations business consultant will work to provide advice on things like supply chain management, process management, procurement, and outsourcing. These types of business consultants look at how to increase efficiency, cut costs, and improve quality.
Operations consultants are typically hired when there’s an economic downturn, a change in management, or when a new technology’s rolling out.
Type #4: HR consultants
Effective management of employees keeps a business successful in the long-term. An HR consultant is brought in when a business is struggling with aspects of human resources, like training and development, employee satisfaction, conflict resolution, and employee benefits and pensions.
An HR consultant will also look at whether your policies and procedures adhere to the appropriate laws and regulations, how to best implement HR policies, whether training sessions need to be created, and how to improve employee satisfaction.
Type #5: Risk and compliance consultants
Sometimes, a business may have excessive laws, regulations, standards, and ethics to uphold. A risk and compliance business consultant is there to prevent fraud, abuse, and discrimination, and works to minimize risks of fines and lawsuits.
These types of business consultants may establish or review a compliance program, help to identify business or industry-specific risks, and/or integrate new policies and programs.
Type #6: IT consultants
An IT business consultant is very specific to companies looking for assistance with things like systems integration, enterprise architecture, software management, and data analytics.
Unlike general management consulting, an IT consultant is going to focus on how new technologies might be able to help a company reach their goals, how to optimize your existing IT setup, and how to integrate changes to improve productivity.
Type #7: Environmental business consultants
Some business consultants specialize in the environment. Organizations working with products or services that have an environmental effect may seek out a consultant in this field.
An environmental consultant will analyze proposed plans’ impact on the environment. They also ensure your company’s in compliance with all relevant environmental laws and regulations. Plus, they check how any negative environmental impact can be minimized or remedied altogether.
Type #8: Sales consultants
Every business lives and dies by their sales. A sales business consultant focuses on training salespeople, advising on sales workflows and sales management team strategies, and seeks to improve the current sales process.
In addition, sales consultants identify new opportunities and how to leverage them. They also incentivize your sales team to outperform their previous output. If you’re struggling with sales, a business consultant specializing in sales is exactly where you want to look.
Type #9: Marketing consultants
A very popular business consultant type is marketing. Every company wants to know how to attract, convert, and retain the maximum number of customers possible. A marketing consultant can advise on PPC advertising, content marketing, SEO, the value of print and TV advertising.
Marketing consultants also check if there are any direct response marketing opportunities available to you. They should be able to identify what marketing channels are most profitable for your business to pursue, advise on improving conversion and customer acquisitions, and more.
Type #10: Social media consultants
Among the more inexpensive business consultants are social media consultants. Although this sometimes fits under ‘marketing consultant’, in many cases, social media is its own thing.
A social media consultant will help to determine which channels can provide the highest ROI for your business, what type of content you should be posting on social media, strategizing an effective social media campaign, and more.
Type #11: Career coaching consultants
Sometimes, a company will hire a career coaching consultant to assist employees in identifying skills to develop, to assess their ambition, and to assess their approach to performance.
While it’s rare for the average business will hire a career coaching consultant, financial services corporations and others have hired this type of consultant to help employees develop, increase internal competition, and help provide individual employees with the skills to achieve their goals.