So....what are peoples views on the various industry strat departments out there. Any that people would recommend working for with a good reputation (independant of industry)? Would be interesting to hear people's experiences.

I think your choices are to either go for something small and fast-growing (e.g., strategy role at Innocent drinks equivalent) or to go for a major brand (e.g., P&G, Shell, BP, Tesco, GE etc etc).One bit of advice would be to try and find a strategy department (e.g., Tesco) that doesn't really use consultants (for their high-level work). I know people at BP who used to say "if you want to do BP Strategy go and work for MBB, they do all our strategy".

I don't know of many corporations which really have developed strat houses.Obviously the banks do nowadays, but beyond that the best that I've seen are probably US-based Disney (staffed by corp finance ibankers doing M&A) and the BBC (an 80 strong team of former consultants).I don't know how Tesco and the like do their strategy, but I don't think they're a big user of consultants.

Tesco doesn't use consultants, has a big team of ex-consultants.Sainsbury's is creating a big strategy department.Shell has an in-house strategy function.Loads of the major corporations have Strat Depts.

Sainsbury's strategy can be neatly summed up as:"copy Tesco"It's pretty safe to assume that they're building the same team.

Nah. I have to disagree. I feel their strategy is more along the lines of copy tesco then barrage the public with jamie oliver.

I stand corrected.Good point.

Second the rapidly growing company suggestion.Moved from consulting into a telecoms firm which has rapidly grown (via acquisition and organic growth).Result is large amount of interaction with the board, significant delivery responsibility and strong promotion prospects. Big advantage is we don't use strategy consultants, except for very specific bits of analysis (and not MBB)