What does strategy work actually look like?

That's a fantastic question, and one that often causes confusion because the word "strategy" is applied to almost everything under the sun in consulting.

The simplest way to define core strategy work is that it focuses exclusively on answering the "three big questions" for the C-suite: Where to play? How to win? And What capabilities do we need to execute that? If the deliverable doesn't directly inform a $100M+ decision or change the long-term direction of the company, it's probably not core strategy.

The output is rarely a complex tech stack or a massive implementation roadmap. Instead, the final product is often a deeply researched, financially modeled, and highly defensible recommendation, usually structured as a definitive argument presented to the CEO or Board. Think of it as high-velocity, structured hypothesis testing. For example, a pure strategy engagement might be a full-scale market entry assessment (Should we enter Southeast Asia?), an M&A commercial due diligence (Is the target company’s revenue growth truly achievable?), or a zero-based competitive response (How should we react to our main competitor launching a new product line?).

On a day-to-day level, this means your time is spent less on process mapping and more on intensive external interviewing of market experts, building complex scenario models in Excel, and constantly pressure-testing your core recommendations against competitive moves and market dynamics. It requires intellectual curiosity and the ability to synthesize massive amounts of conflicting data into a clear, actionable narrative. It sucks up huge amounts of time, but it’s where you learn how the true economic levers of an industry work.

All the best!