Here's something nobody told me when I was starting my consulting career.
Strategy & ops is just internal consulting.
That's it.
Except... it's also not, because the implications of that one word — internal — ripple into basically everything.
And candidly, I didn't fully understand how different they were until I was already in the second one.
I had seen a bunch of "Day in the life of a consultant" videos but it never really clicked for me how working as an external consultant - which is what you are when you're at firm - differs from being an internal consultant, where you're embedded inside a company.
These internal consulting roles are what we call "BizOps" or "Strategy & Operations".
External vs. Internal.
Does it really make that big a difference?
Yes.
That one factor is why Strategy & Ops for 90% of people is an exit from consulting and not the starting point.
So what's actually different?
A lot. Travel, culture, how you get promoted, even how much of an impact you make and get to see.
A simple way to think about this is: consulting is business boot camp.
Firms hire you knowing you don't know Excel or PowerPoint yet. They'll teach you.
In return for shitty work-life balance, you'll get an incredible foundation of analytical skills, problem solving, broad exposure across industries.
It's basically a daily masterclass in business. Drink from the fire hose and what not.
Strategy & ops expects you to walk in ready. No training wheels. Of course you need to learn the business context and maybe even the industry, but you're already expected to be good at data analysis, problem solving, and have those fundamentals down.
That's why BizOps teams (almost) exclusively hire consultants.
On paper, the jobs look nearly identical ...
You build analyses, make decks, and present ideas to executives.
But the context - interval vs. external - changes everything.
In consulting, you hand over the recommendation and move on to the next client.
You rarely find out whether anyone actually did what you said, let alone whether it worked.
In strategy & ops, you don't get to do that.
Because if the ideas you're recommending get used, guess what, you're still around to see whether it made a difference!
Which sounds great until you realize the results are rarely clean.
IRL example: One of my jobs doing BizOps @ Adobe was helping shape how the sales org went to market each year: which teams went after which customers, how resources were allocated.
If we got it wrong, then we're locked into the wrong org design for an entire year. Translation? We miss our growth numbers. People get fired. Stock price goes down. It's bad.
But did our proposals work? It's honestly hard to say.
There's no A/B test for org design. No clear before and after because a hundred other variables changed at the same time.
So a surprising amount of the actual job isn't analysis.
It's framing - helping people understand why the work mattered when the data can't do it for you.
This can be deeply satisfying or uncomfortable as hell.
The accountability — and the visibility that comes with it — is the real difference between these two jobs.
And depending on who you are, it's either what makes the work meaningful or what makes it exhausting.
Which one is right for you?
It depends on where you are in your career.
If you have zero business experience, consulting is probably the right first move.
Get the foundation, drink from the fire hose, and savor in those sweet exit options.
If you've already done that, and like the day-to-day work of analysis, building slides, and being in rooms with execs, then S&O could be the play for you.
In last week's video I go deeper on three things that are worth knowing before you decide:
- How you actually get promoted in each role
- When to recruit for each
- Even real comp numbers
Because let's be real, part of why you're considering these jobs is probably the pay. So I shared my real salaries + bonuses too 😉
Until next week,
Jacky "people get 🔥'd, stock goes 📉" Ye
P.s.
If you're serious making the jump from consulting → strategy & ops, you might be interested in my Career Growth Partner Program.
I've made the move myself and now help others do the same, from resume all the way to offer.
You can learn more, see results, and apply on this page here.
