Business strategists are becoming increasingly common among enterprises. Reason? Conglomerates looking to drive organization-wide growth need them.  Disruptive technologies, new generation of workforce, and continuously changing workplace dynamics, has leaders thinking about strategic ways to achieve business goals, which has led them to look for professionals who can take charge and drive reforms that accelerate business processes and achieve business goals.

In simple words, business leaders are looking for business strategy professionals. These professionals are good at strategic thinking, planning, execution, and ultimately achieving desired business goals. A good business strategist manifests a gamut of skills.

Skills of a good business strategist

The following are some essential skills —

1. Strategic thinking: Building plans to achieve company goals requires deep understanding of business operations and psychology of workers. Keeping these in mind, a strategist builds a well-thought plan and achieve goals.
2. Interpersonal skills: Strategists regularly communicate with board members of company, workers, and company executives. This requires them to have good interpersonal skills.
3. Analytical and problem-solving skills: Strategic plans often face roadblocks due to regulatory changes, company policies, and employee relations. This requires business strategy professionals to solve problems and keep plans running plans smoothly and not get bogged down
4. Positive and confident: Working under tight deadlines often creates a lot of pressure and things can take unexpected grim turns. In times like these, it is important for strategists to stay calm and look at things positively and motivate teams to stay on the path.
5. Competitive: Like any other professionals, business strategists are required to stay aware of competitors and think of ways to stay ahead of them. Knowledge of competitors helps to devise strategy that gains better and faster results.

Overall, a business strategist apart from their quintessential strategic thinking require numerous skills to excel in their job. Continuous learning is also an important parameter to be successful in business strategy. As trends come up, it is important to incorporate changes in existing plans and ride on the popularity of trends. Good strategists know the importance of riding on trends and getting benefit out of it.

How to foray into business strategy?

An MBA is a foremost qualification to become a business strategist. However, companies today are open to hire people who come with full-time experience in business strategy, strategic management, and business expansion-related roles. Companies today have roles such as CSO, chief strategy officer, who work alongside CEOs, CBOs, CFOs, CTOs, and C-suite executives which emphasize the role of strategy officers. The growing importance of business strategist has also led professionals to pursue business strategy related certification programs to qualify for this role.

All in all, skills are mandatory to pursue a career in business strategy more than anything else. Strong business background or experience of leading teams to success is an add-on for those looking to carve an indomitable image in this area of work.  Networking with business leaders, contributing thought pieces to industry publications, and regularly attending business conferences is essential part of a business strategist to stay visible.