Hi,I have a potential opportunity to move into an internal Transformational Consultant role in a services provider on the FTSE100I'm fortunate to have been nominated into my company "Talent Pool" and hope to move up to a VP level within 4 years, although no particular thoughts on what kind of VP role at this stage.My previous roles are bid Finance and Procurement. Is internal consultancy a good place to get a different experience or would my next move be better into a customer facing sales or operational role to have experience of the "front line"?I appreciate it's a nice to have quandry in the current job market, however I would value some constructive thoughts. Thanks in advance

This won't be a popular view I suspect, but I spent quite a few happy years as an internal consultant on stimulatring projects and enjoyed not living out of a suitcase, forming long term bonds with internal "clients" and keeping a prudential eye on expensive external consultants to enmsure they were delivering real value. What's more there is also a good chance of a decent "line" role in the organisation somewhere along the way. It's a shame that more big organisations don't make the investment in strong internal consultancy and save themselves some money in the longer term

Actually I'll second the tone of Stir Crazy; I've seen some truly exceptional talents move into internal consulting roles and thrive on the challenges. If you want to keep the external MC option on the table for later then you'll need to keep in mind visible stakeholder management to prove you can still 'cut it' in external consultancy though, and you'll have to deal with the politics which you can cut through more easily in an external role - but you might enjoy that element. It is not for nothing that most grad schemes and prof dev schemes involve rotations around a business through different functions, from front line to top line: the rounded sense of the entirety of how a company it put together, its operations end to end, markets, finances and risk exposure is what makes a business leader just that. Sounds like a great opportunity and one you would do well to take.

Thanks Stir and Mars....how have internal clients viewed you in that role.....worried that they may see the hatchet man/internal audit approachng and not be co-operative?

Generally I found the internal clients receptive but it is true that you sometimes have to try that bit harder to get them to co-operate with you when you are not external and therefore costing real 'money out of the door'. On the other hand if you get your stakeholder mgt right, as Mars suggests, then you will often find that they trust you more and the quality of their co-operation is better. Good luck in whatever you decide to do.

I have worked in both internal and external consultancy roles. The upsides have already been mentioned. One downside in my experience was that the projects tended to be repetative and the thrill of the chase in proposition development and sales pursuits was largely absent. One big advantage was terrorising external account managers and consultants on projects when they came out with consultancy bo**ocks or tried to pass off MBA material as hand crafted intellectual value add. That on its own makes it worth considering.