Management Analysts and Management Consultants

A Day in the Life

Your career as a business analyst provides you with plenty of challenges and opportunities for growth. Depending on where you work, you may also be known as a management consultant or business consultant. You complete some contract-based work for clients that you find on your own but are assigned the majority of your positions through a consultancy firm with which you work. You've just been assigned to complete a management analysis at a struggling cosmetics company. One of the many perks of your job is that you get to travel to Boston, where the company is located. You'll stay in Boston until you've completed your analysis, which will take you between three and five weeks.

You start your new assignment by meeting with the management team at the cosmetics company. You've already reviewed their financial data and major concerns, so you ask them specific questions about their goals and begin to think through your plan for analysis. You enjoy a business lunch with managers from throughout the company and then head back to your hotel suite to plan how you'll go about your analysis over the next few weeks. You draw up an outline for the plan and call the company's president so that additional financial reports that you need can be faxed to you at your hotel.

The next morning, you head to the cosmetic company's headquarters and ask to be introduced to managers in key departments. You spend the day shadowing these managers and asking questions about how they complete a wide variety of tasks. You take extensive notes so that you can pinpoint areas where company managers can improve efficiency and boost profitability. Because you need to gain important information from these managers, you are careful to treat them with respect and to be personable.

You spend the next week shadowing managers and holding regular meetings with company executives. You refine your understanding of the company's goals and begin to draft a plan for improvement. After you've gathered all necessary data, you sit down and spend a day on your own writing up the improvement plan. The next day, you hold a meeting with company executives and explain the plan.

Over the next two weeks, you work with company managers to implement changes. You help them adjust their management practices to come in line with company goals. You noticed that the company's computer programs were difficult to use, so you also help IT professionals transition to a new system and train employees on its use. At the end of the month, you say your goodbyes to the managers you've worked with and head home. You'll visit the business again in a few months to track the effects of the new management plan.

It's important to remember that a handful of business analysts also work within major corporations as part of a business strategy group. If you choose one of these positions, you will spend all of your time analyzing and managing problems that your corporation faces.