Job Responsibilities
My position was basically an internal corporate consulting
function, providing strategic market research and broad business
and technology strategy services to the executives, business
development staff and technical management of the company. I
created and then managed a team of 6 people, 4 who were based at
a subsidiary in Bangalore, India to provide these services. The
responsibilities can be broken down into several categories:
1. Providing strategic market research.
This responsibility, combined with managing the team, was my
primary activity (say 60%). It was conducted through performing
projects to internal corporate clients. Typical projects ranged
in duration from about 20 hours up to 200 hours of more, with an
average around 100 hours. The requests often included topics such
as identify competitors for this product, investigate the
strength of our patent portfolio for a proposed product or
technology, or explore key issues and trends in an industry we
were considering launching a new product.
2. Business and technology strategy services.
Some projects involved advising executives or Business Unit heads
as to how they should consider a roadmap or strategic plan for
introducing a new technology or product to the marketplace. These
projects sometimes had more of a business emphasis (e.g. go after
these target clients, watch out for this competitor),and
sometimes had more of a technology focus (e.g. this techology
will provide significant differentiation over the competition,
and if it is marketed to highlight these certain features, you
are more likely to capture market share). This activity was about
20% of my time.
3. Investigating and providing external data and information
services to the company.
A third activity, done jointly with our research librarians, was
to evaluate existing data sources the company subscribed to (such
as Hoovers, IEEE, Dun & Bradstreet), and investigate new options
to support both the technial and business information needs of
the company. This activity involved interviewing sales executives
from various data providers, trialing their services and deciding
what was the best investment for the company. This was again
about 20% of my effort.
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Job Requirements
The position I had, Business and Technology Strategist, was
created jointly between me and my supervisor to fill a need we
saw in the company. It was not an advertised position. In other
companies aspects of this job can be found in Competitive
Intelligence, Business Inteligence, Market Research and Business
Strategy types of positions, all at relatively senior levels
(typically a Director to Vice President level).
The key background requirements in a highly technical company
like mine, is to have a strong technical background (MS for sure,
PhD desirable), have experience in multiple industries, and have
a reasonably good business background (MBA is nice, but at least
equivalent work experience, especially with a good understanding
of how to investigate market and industry trends, competitors,
and how to think about corporate and business strategy. A lot of
this experience can be obtained through multiple work
assignments, but requires probably at least 10 years work
experience post graduate school.
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Uppers
The best part of this job is that if it is done well, you can have a significant
influence on the strategic direction of the company, such as which markets and
industries to enter, how to deal with specific competitors, which technology or
product ideas should be invested in and which ones should be dropped. It also is
a great opportunity for high visibility with the executives and for partnering
with them on issues of major importance for the company.
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Downers
One possible downer is that the corporate culture needs to value
this external view of the world and be open to ideas that may
differ from those of the executives. If this is not the case,
then this type of role could be frustrating as the results of
market research and strategy work are ignored.
One other possible risk, especially at the low end, is the
possibility of having this function outsourced to places like
India.
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Lifestyle
I worked at a very technically oriented company with very casual dress codes and
a culture where one had a lot of freedom to be innovative about the
responsibilities of one's job. I really enjoyed the flexibility to create and
then deliver on a vision for this function in this company. This flexibility
included deciding on conferences and trade shows to attend, potential partners to
explore and information services to buy or subscribe to.
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Compensation
My position had a base salary of $120K, with a possible 20% bonus
as well as good medical, dental and other benefits as well as a
matching 401(K) program.
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Advice to Jobseekers
I think this will be a significant field for the future, but I
believe most candidates will approach it through the more
traditional MBA and corporate strategy route. I think there are
very few candidates with PhD level technical backgrounds who have
made the "MBA-like" switch to be able to perform what is both a
technical and business role, but I believe such people will be
valued, especially for senior business roles in high-techology
companies.
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