Hi, I am a student at the moment hoping to enter this industry specifically with Deloitte Consulting.There has been some mention on this board of Deloitte separating their strategy and operation functions recently. Their website descriptions of these lines are vague and there seems to be a lot of overlap. Could someone please briefly explain the difference between strategy & operations? Is it as simple as the strategy team divising a strategy, and the operations team deciding how to implement it?Also, I read that Deloitte are only recruiting low numbers of grads into strategy and instead puting them into operations. Is this true? If so why? What are the day tp day differences between working in strategy and working in operations? Is working in strategy thought to be better in the long term for a career in MC? Any comments on this or Deloitte consulting would be appreciated.Cheers.

,stay at uni and keep to the double vodka and cokes

How on earth can you be so completely focused on Toilette if you don't really understand what they do??Answering your question, strategy is what it says on the tin (although some 'strategy' work can be very low level), operations is usually more about process improvement and streamlining the business than project management or planning for the implementation of the strategy

Hi, thanks for your replies. Just to clarify I'm currently swinging towards Deloitte cos I think I'd be more successful with their entry requirements and get on better with the culture. I'm still forming my opinions though, and although I understand most of what they do- this is all part of the research! But as an analyst the differences in actual day to day tasks between strat & ops was unclear. Any further comments on deloitte consulting or their split of strategy & ops? Cheers.

The difference between strategy and operations is actually pretty narrow and they do work together. What follows are descriptions of the paradigms of each, rather than the grey ground inbetween:Strategy: principal question - Why?Strategy aims to consider the market conditions and external environment that a company operates in. The answer is "out there". Typical activites are desk research, hypotheses testing and numerical financial analysis. Projects might be M&A due diligence, or a corporate strategy pieceOperations: Principal question is "how?"Operations disciplines focus on business improvements and programme management. It tends to focus on the success factors within as opposed to outside the firm. Typical activites include project management, process mapping, client interviewing and workshopsProjects might be: transforming support functions of a business, or improving finance function, cost reduction.The differences are small and there are opportunities to work in either.There are likely to be less strat graduates as it is a smaller departmentIn terms of future career opportunities, I have no idea. I'd quite like to know myself.

hey,do they normally allow consultants to jump from Strategy to Ops from one project to the other?thanks...

Up to Senior Consultant level, there isn't much differentiation in projects and people from Strategy/Ops can be working on projects that technically fall within the other's camp.You don't jump in terms of where you sit within the organisation between projects, but you often have a Strategy project manager on one project then go work for an Ops project manager.There are still projects that were sold and continue to be billed under agreements written when Strategy & Ops were one unit so there are plenty of projects without a clear S/O ownership.

Thanks for your answer. Real helpful.So for example, if I am pursuing a Green Belt Six Sigma certification I could without a problem (of course, being them available) go for a Strategy Project? I was also wondering if you could tell me how long do these projects normally take and how is the work atmosphere there.Thanks a lot. Really. :)

Please, anyone around who could answer this question?Thanks

Once you're specialising in 6-Sigma you'd probably be moving away from the analyst profile and forfeiting the experience required for strategy.However, you could be staffed on projects which aren't purely strategy but happen to be led by a strategy project manager and require someone with 6-Sigma expertise.It's difficult to estimate how often this is likely to happen as it relies on a) those projects coming up and b) the project manager knowing and liking you.

Is it 6-Sigma certification a real plus? Do you recommend an online environment to get certification? What other courses could be more effective?

When you say, "what other courses", do you mean other delivery methods for learning and getting certified in 6-Sigma, or do you mean alternatives to 6-Sigma?I'm presuming here that you mean the former.Certification in 6-Sigma, Prince-2, or any formal methodology, is worthwhile if you're using it on a regular basis or need to set yourself up as a content expert. Otherwise, you tend to forget how to use it properly.Doing a course can be useful if you want to pick up some ideas and methodologies to use elsewhere. It's a personal preference of course, but I find face-to-face training a lot more effective for learning than online courses. If you just need the piece of paper and know that you won't use any of it, then an online course from a reputable training company will do fine.