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Business advisor vs consultant

The differences between business advisors and consultants can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. Additionally, a business advisor has an average salary of $96,469, which is higher than the $78,912 average annual salary of a consultant.

The top three skills for a business advisor include customer service, project management and business operations. The most important skills for a consultant are customer service, strong analytical, and project management.

Business advisor vs consultant overview

Business AdvisorConsultant
Yearly salary$96,469$78,912
Hourly rate$46.38$37.94
Growth rate6%11%
Number of jobs125,154171,733
Job satisfaction-4
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 67%Bachelor's Degree, 64%
Average age4444
Years of experience-4

What does a business advisor do?

Business Advisors are consultants responsible for implementing business strategies to improve financial and operational efficiency. They are involved in preparing financial budgets, recommending a change in the operational process, identifying new business opportunities, evaluating a marketing strategy, and reviewing supplier and labor contracts. Business advisors also help to manage risk by performing risk analysis and consumer behavioral analysis. They are involved in report preparation and work to maintain open communication with different departments to implement change.

What does a consultant do?

Consultants are individuals who were tapped by a company or an organization to work on a specific activity, depending on their field of expertise. They act as guides for the organization in undertaking projects that are related to their field. Consultants would usually assist organizations in planning, often giving advice when the need arises. They would, at times, take the lead in activities that involve data gathering and interpretation of data gathering results so that they can provide solid recommendations on actions that the organization may undertake. They may also guide the organization in implementing any changes brought about by their consultancy and in evaluating the effectiveness of the changes.

Business advisor vs consultant salary

Business advisors and consultants have different pay scales, as shown below.

Business AdvisorConsultant
Average salary$96,469$78,912
Salary rangeBetween $67,000 And $138,000Between $58,000 And $107,000
Highest paying CitySan Francisco, CAWashington, DC
Highest paying stateNew JerseyNew Jersey
Best paying companyAmazonL.E.K. Consulting
Best paying industryTechnologyTechnology

Differences between business advisor and consultant education

There are a few differences between a business advisor and a consultant in terms of educational background:

Business AdvisorConsultant
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 67%Bachelor's Degree, 64%
Most common majorBusinessBusiness
Most common collegeWestern Carolina UniversityNorthwestern University

Business advisor vs consultant demographics

Here are the differences between business advisors' and consultants' demographics:

Business AdvisorConsultant
Average age4444
Gender ratioMale, 63.9% Female, 36.1%Male, 58.4% Female, 41.6%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 6.4% Unknown, 4.6% Hispanic or Latino, 9.4% Asian, 8.8% White, 70.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4%Black or African American, 7.8% Unknown, 4.5% Hispanic or Latino, 8.7% Asian, 13.8% White, 65.0% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%
LGBT Percentage11%12%

Differences between business advisor and consultant duties and responsibilities

Business advisor example responsibilities.

  • Manage training and presentation collateral on SharePoint system, resulting in recycling of documentation for consistent messaging across enterprise.
  • Manage cost-centers and leverage unique Indian production and post- production capabilities and position the company as a prefer production partner.
  • Prepare financial statements, payroll tax reports, and advise small business clients on accounting and financial management matters.
  • Provide a supplement team in an effort to create a cloud computing architecture team at a major telecommunications company.
  • Handle miscellaneous bookkeeping duties including payroll, payroll taxes, accounts receivable, accounts payable and financial statements for client companies.
  • Support the reengineering of the SME development area.
  • Show more

Consultant example responsibilities.

  • Lead IIS tuning to get the maximum through put.
  • Manage daily data operations and customer support for SaaS web application products in Linux.
  • Manage several contractors in the development and coding of DB2 interface programs, as well as modification of the package software.
  • Manage operational incidents and changes to consistently meet SLA compliance
  • Introduce Jenkins to help automate manual deployments to multiple environments.
  • Design and code windows service to automate NRA applications email distribution.
  • Show more

Business advisor vs consultant skills

Common business advisor skills
  • Customer Service, 10%
  • Project Management, 8%
  • Business Operations, 8%
  • Strong Analytical, 8%
  • Healthcare, 7%
  • Human Resources, 4%
Common consultant skills
  • Customer Service, 10%
  • Strong Analytical, 7%
  • Project Management, 6%
  • C++, 5%
  • C #, 5%
  • Java, 5%

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