Hire a corporate strategy consultant when the question is which businesses to own and where to put capital: enter a market, exit one, buy, sell or spin off. Skip it when the question is how to run a business you already own better. That is operations work.
Expect a fact base on markets and competitors, options with numbers attached, and a recommendation your board can test. The consultant brings analysts, outside data and a view from other companies. Your executives must still choose, and they must explain the choice to everyone below them.
What they do
A corporate strategy consultant helps the leadership team decide where the company will compete and how capital will follow.
Fact base. They size markets, profile competitors, and measure where your businesses make and lose money.
Portfolio choices. They test which businesses to grow, fix, sell or spin off. Each option gets a value, a risk and the steps to get there. Under US Internal Revenue Code Section 355, a tax-free spin-off generally requires each business to have been actively conducted for the 5 years before the distribution.
Growth options. They assess adjacencies, new markets, partnerships and acquisitions against the company's capabilities and balance sheet.
Choosing and communicating. They run the workshops where executives argue and decide, then turn the decision into priorities, targets and a budget. In a 2015 survey of 11,000 senior executives, leaders and managers at more than 400 companies, only a third could list their firm's top 3 priorities.
What they do not do. They do not make the decision or carry it out.
When to hire, and when not to
Hire when
- The board has asked whether the company should keep, sell or spin off a business, and management needs an outside fact base.
- Growth in the core business is slowing, and leadership disagrees on which adjacent market to enter.
- A large acquisition is on the table and you need to know whether it fits the strategy before the deal team prices it.
- A new CEO wants an independent read of the portfolio in the first months.
- Capital is spread across many businesses and no one can say which earn their cost of capital.
Skip it when
- Leadership has already decided and wants a consultant's name on the slides. That spends money to buy cover.
- The problem is execution in a business you plan to keep. Hire operations help or fix the management team.
- You have a strong internal strategy team that can do the analysis. Buy data or expert calls instead.
- The executives who must carry out the decision will not take part in making it.
How engagements are set up
Strategy review
A fixed-scope project that builds the fact base, tests options and ends with a recommendation to the board. Fits a portfolio or growth decision with a clear deadline.
Single-question study
Answers one question, such as whether to enter a market or exit a business. Shorter and cheaper than a full review.
Strategic planning support
Helps the internal team run the annual or multi-year planning cycle, with the consultant facilitating and challenging. Fits companies building their own strategy function.
Board or CEO advisor
A senior advisor works with the CEO or board on a retainer, a few days a month. Fits leaders who want a sparring partner more than an analysis team.
What it costs
Strategy work is priced as a fixed fee per project or phase, or billed by time. In a 2025 survey of consultants, 36% priced by project, 26% by value and 23% by the hour, and 88% did not list fees on their websites.
The cost is driven by team size and weeks. Ask for the fee by phase, the named people and the days each will spend on your work, and what data purchases or expert calls are billed on top. Ask what happens to the fee if you stop after the first phase.
Before you talk to firms
- The decision you need to make, written as 1 or 2 questions, and the date the board expects an answer.
- Financials by business unit for the last 3 years, including capital employed.
- Your current strategy documents and the last 2 years of board strategy papers.
- A list of options leadership has already considered or rejected, and why.
- A named internal lead and a small team who will work with the consultants and keep the work afterward.
Questions to ask in the pitch meeting
- Which portfolio or growth decisions have you worked on for companies of our size in the last 3 years, and can I speak to the CEO or CFO on 2 of them?
- Who will do the work day to day, and how much of the senior partner's time is in the fee?
- What will you need from our team, and how many hours a week?
- Which data sources will you use for market sizing, and will we keep the models and data?
- What is your initial hypothesis, and what evidence would change it?
- How will you involve the executives who must carry out the decision?
- Do you also offer implementation work, and how do you avoid recommending work you would then sell us?
- What did a past client decide against your advice, and how did it turn out?
- How will the decision be turned into priorities and budgets that managers below the executive team understand?
Warning signs
- They present a recommendation in the first meeting, before they have seen your numbers.
- The deck is mostly frameworks and market trends with nothing specific to your businesses.
- The senior partner who pitched will appear only at steering committees.
- They will not share the models or data behind the recommendation.
- Every option ends with a large implementation program they would run.
- They talk only to the CEO and never to the managers who run the businesses.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between corporate strategy and business strategy?
Corporate strategy decides which businesses the company owns and how capital moves between them. Business strategy decides how one business competes in its market. A corporate strategy consultant works on the first: portfolio, acquisitions, divestitures and entry into new markets. Many firms do both, so say which question you are asking.
Is there evidence that management consulting improves performance?
Some, from operations rather than strategy. In a randomized field experiment in large Indian textile firms, plants that received free consulting on management practices raised average productivity by 11%, according to the 2011 working paper. Judge a strategy consultant by the decision it helps you make and by references from past clients.
Should we use the same firm for strategy and implementation?
You can, but separate the contracts and the decisions. A firm that expects to run implementation has a reason to recommend a large program. Ask the firm to price the strategy work on its own, and decide on implementation support after the strategy is set.
Why do strategies fail after the consultant leaves?
Often because people below the executive team do not know what the strategy is. A 2015 survey of 11,000 senior executives, leaders and managers at more than 400 companies found that only a third could list their firm's top 3 priorities. Build communication and budgeting into the scope, and give an internal owner the job of keeping the strategy alive.
Can a strategy consultant help with a spin-off?
With the strategic case, yes: which business to separate, how it will compete alone, and what it will cost. Tax and legal structure need tax advisors and lawyers. In the US, a tax-free spin-off must meet Internal Revenue Code Section 355, including an active trade or business test over the 5 years before the distribution.
Sources
- London Business School, Why senior managers can't name their firms' top priorities (December 2015)
- 26 U.S. Code § 355, Distribution of stock and securities of a controlled corporation (Cornell Legal Information Institute)
- Bloom, Eifert, Mahajan, McKenzie and Roberts, Does Management Matter? Evidence from India, NBER Working Paper 16658 (2011)
- Consulting statistics: pricing models and fees (updated 2025)
Written by Stratrix editors from public sources and checked claim by claim by a second AI model. Firms pay Stratrix when they accept an introduction; they do not pay to influence this guide, and it names none of them. How introductions work