A financial advisory consultant generally addresses various financial issues, such as working with debt, managing liability for certain projects, capital raising for business, or other major strategic projects, acquisitions, and implementation. They are also responsible for advising management about exiting certain business concerns, partnership matters, and mergers and acquisitions. They also give advice on financing and business restructuring.
The primary duties of a financial advisory consultant include analyzing and providing advice to clients and management on mergers and acquisitions, commercial real estate loans, business financing, merchant banking, investment banking, and other financial advisory services. They also provide an array of general financial consulting services to help their clients manage their risk profile. For example, they may be hired to evaluate the risk level associated with a particular product line and recommend changes in operating procedures or financial projections that will minimize the client’s exposure to risk.
The Financial Advisory Consultant’s Responsibilities
In order to become a financial consultant, a person needs to have a four-year degree in a relevant field. Most financial advisory consultants begin their careers by obtaining an associate’s degree and then working towards a bachelor’s degree. Often, financial consultants with an associate’s degree also choose to continue on to obtain a master’s degree in finance or some related area. Many financial consultants also choose to attend business school in order to attain a PhD.
While there are a variety of specialties within the corporate finance consultants’ field, two most common segments are property and risk. Property segment deals with helping clients manage real estate assets. These include commercial real estate, strip malls, office buildings, apartment complexes, and warehouses. Risk is a more specialized area of the financial advisory consultant responsibilities.
Finance Is the Process of Making Investment Decisions and Analyzing
Strategy consultants develop and implement a specific business plan for their clients. This often includes identifying opportunities and threats. The strategies that these consultants develop and implement guide these professionals in creating investment strategies for individual clients. Typically, these strategies will be implemented as a means of maximizing the profits for the investors. Additionally, they help them develop investment portfolios that will ensure maximum safety. All financial consultants develop and implement their own proprietary strategies.
There are four main disciplines within the world of corporate finance and financial advisory consulting. The primary areas of concentration within each discipline are accounting, finance, economics, and statistics. Accounting is the process of managing financial transactions in a legal and sophisticated manner. Finance is the process of making investment decisions and analyzing the financial results of those decisions. Economics deals with the overall supply and demand of money while statistics deals with the analysis of statistical data.
The Consulting Strategic Analyst Develops Investment Strategies Based Upon Their Understanding
Within the four main disciplines within corporate finance, the subcategories of consulting segments deal specifically with these four areas. The consulting strategic analyst develops investment strategies based upon their understanding of the macro and micro economy. The macroeconomic sector includes interest rates, consumer spending, industrial production, government spending, balance of trade, international trade, and consumer sentiment. The micro economic segment of this discipline includes economic indicators from manufacturing, consumption, investment, business financing, business sales, and banking
The other eight main disciplines of financial advisory services deal with taxation, global economics, international business, personal and family finance, estate planning, and philanthropy. In order to become an expert in any one of these eight main fields, it takes an extensive amount of research.
The vast majority of the professional consultants will begin by obtaining a bachelor’s degree before progressing to master degrees or Ph.D.’s. These professional consultants also commonly serve as adjunct faculty members at top colleges and universities. The other six consulting areas that are included in the professional scope of responsibility include risk management, asset protection, communications, government, technology, and mergers and acquisitions.
