What “hard skills” do you need as a strategy consultant? I’ve done strategy projects but it’s mostly been PPT work and basic Excel (pivot tables)...what am I missing?

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Nothing, you pretty much covered it.

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Technical skills are great, but if you can deliver a clear message/story, through your use of analytics, well that my friend is strategy!

OP, assuming you're at a more junior level it's the soft skills that are more important

I haven’t done any financial modeling...am I in trouble? If so, where can I learn how to model

Love Pivots

OP, what area of Strategy are you in? Or are you just ASADP?

Aligned to CDP but currently in process of (hopefully) transferring to ASADP (I have MD sponsorship). Majority of the work I’ve done since joining has been with Strategy.

I wouldn't say you're in trouble, but financial modelling is certainly a good skill to have. For some projects, like ZBB or a Cost Baseline Assessment, it's definitely a needed skill and you'll have to pick it up pretty quickly. For others, like Operating Model Strategy, more basic Excel skills are probably the expectation. I would say most prohects fall into the latter category but YMMV and it'll depend on what areas in Strategy you end up getting pulled towards

Gotcha. I’m pretty comfortable with basic excel such as pivots, slice and dice data, graphs, can learn formulas with a quick google search etc. I’m scared though not knowing financial modeling will hold me back

Honestly, based on that I think you should be fine 😁

Good to know. So I don’t need to learn forecasting and etc per say? 😁😁. Any other “hard skills” I should learn?

I wouldn't worry too much about that, or picking up any other hard skills right now. Think as long as you can pick things up relatively fast that's more important.
If you have interest in a specific area you could study up on it some (e.g., if you're interested in something like technology strategy it'd be good to read up on what the typical technology layers are, what are the top trends in the area, etc.) That way if you come across a role in that area you'll be more likely to get it

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