Business strategy consulting is a growing field. Digital transformation is one trend driving the need for consultants who can provide advice and support on areas existing business leaders aren’t familiar with. Emerging technologies like AI and machine learning also offer opportunities for strategy consultants. If you feel like you’ve got your finger on the pulse of modern business trends, it could be a very profitable career choice.
OPIT’s BSc in Digital Business provides an educational pathway to achieving success as a business strategy consultant. If you already have a bachelor’s degree, a master’s could be your next step to gaining thorough proficiency in this field.
Understanding Business Strategy Consulting
Successful companies tend to be very good at what they do, whether that’s providing a physical product or a service. The most successful firms know that for some things, they need external help. Business strategy consultants are usually third-party, outsourced professionals who spend time with the company on a temporary basis. They’re onboarded to deal with specific challenges, from employee churn to reduced profits.
Consultants use their business acumen and digital skills to assess problems and suggest solutions. They may also help implement those solutions, set goals and KPIs, and monitor results. The success of a consultant’s strategy could determine the future of their career. With that in mind, these professionals are highly driven to help the companies they work for succeed.
Specific responsibilities may involve:
- Assessing current budgets and financial processes
- Liaising with executives from CEOs to CFOs
- Driving efficiencies across various departments
- Identifying growth opportunities
What skills does a business strategy consultant need to perform these duties? Ideally, they’ll have a strong grasp of the company’s industry. They also need to demonstrate digital fluency, particularly in data analysis and visualization. Business consultants must also be objective, great listeners, and effective communicators.
Educational Pathways to Business Strategy Consulting
Business strategy consultants need a bachelor’s degree at the very minimum. OPIT’s BSc in Digital Business covers many of the skills needed for success in this role. You’ll learn business management skills alongside computer science. There are sections on managerial economics, project management, and digital analytics — all critical knowledge for a business consultancy role.
Graduates can opt for a master’s degree to hone their skill set. The MSc in Applied Digital Business delves deep into business strategy and its interplay with digitalization. There’s also the opportunity for an internship to gain real-life experience.
Building Your Career as a Business Strategy Consultant
Your degree is a great foundation for your career as a business strategy consultant. However, it’s important to build up from here any way you can. Here’s one step-by-step pathway you could follow to achieve success as a business consultant.
- Take an Internship
As mentioned before, some courses come with the opportunity for internships. Consider seeking time working with existing consulting firms. You might want to think about the industry you’re most interested in and opt for organizations within that sphere. Another option is to approach companies within that market and offer your services to get as much experience as possible.
- Create a Network of Contacts
While you’re finding ways to gain this experience, start building a network of contacts. A business leader who is impressed with your internship now might hire you in the future. Make sure you keep a record of their details. You can also attend conferences, webinars, and industry trade shows. Speak to people, tell them what you do and what your goals are. It’s a great way to meet people with similar interests and make contacts that can help your career.
- Embrace Life-Long Learning
Continuous education is also vital. The digital landscape is always shifting, so business strategy consultants have to keep up with trends in transformation and data management. Seeking out courses that you can complete alongside your existing career is one way to ensure you’re always ahead of the curve.
Key Skills for Success in Business Strategy Consulting
All business strategy consultants need the following skills:
- Knowing how to make tough calls.
- Handling conflict and objections.
- The ability to make snap decisions.
- Utilizing multiple streams of data to make those decisions.
- The determination to see projects through to completion.
- The confidence to take risks and pivot when something isn’t working.
Your OPIT courses support you in the development of these skills. Because you study foundational business skills alongside data science, you learn how to connect analysis to business decisions. You can quickly justify what others might see as brash choices by visualizing the data that led to that path.
OPIT’s Role in Shaping Future Business Strategy Consultants
At OPIT, our courses are helping create a highly skilled cohort of business strategy consultants. The career-aligned courses are designed to meet the demands of the consultancy industry and the digital needs of the companies you’ll work with.
The BSc in Digital Business is a fully remote, online course. The program runs over five terms, with a final additional term for completing your dissertation project. The minimum timeframe is 24 months, but 36 months is the standard length.
You’ll start with business fundamentals, moving on to computer architectures, ICT skills, and web development. More importantly, for prospective consultants, you cover digital business models, business strategy, and critical thinking.
The MSc in Applied Digital Business builds on what you already know. You’ll cover data science and AI and how it fits into the digital economy. From here, you’ll discover business problem-solving, digital project management, and entrepreneurship, among other topics.
After your third term, you’ll start your thesis project, where you’re encouraged to intern with a trusted industrial partner. You can complete this course in 12 months on the fast-track plan, and the regular duration is 18 months.
As well as the high-quality course content and opportunities to work with professionals, you gain access to unparalleled student support. It’s important that students don’t feel alone or isolated during remote learning. With the proper support, online or hybrid study can be more effective than traditional classroom or lecture-based learning. Analysis from the UK shows that 85% of studies on online learning confirm that supportive, digital courses are more beneficial to students than conventional courses.
Combine Digital Fluency With Business Expertise for a Lucrative Career
Your role as a business strategy consultant could change the direction of many companies. The satisfaction you’ll gain from driving success and transformation is second to none. Successful consultants never stop learning, always discovering new ways to uncover business opportunities.
If you’re excited to start your journey towards business strategy consulting, explore OPIT’s available courses or contact us for more details.
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From the same author
Read the articleBring talented tech experts together, set them a challenge, and give them a deadline. Then, let them loose and watch the magic happen. That, in a nutshell, is what hackathons are all about. They’re proven to be among the most productive tech events when it comes to solving problems and accelerating innovation.
What Is a Hackathon?
Put simply, a hackathon is a short-term event – often lasting just a couple of days, or sometimes even only a matter of hours – where tech experts come together to solve a specific problem or come up with ideas based on a central theme or topic. As an example, teams might be tasked with discovering a new way to use AI in marketing or to create an app aimed at improving student life.
The term combines the words “hack” and “marathon,” due to how participants (hackers or programmers) are encouraged to work around-the-clock to create a prototype, proof-of-concept, or new solution. It’s similar to how marathon runners are encouraged to keep running, putting their skills and endurance to the test in a race to the finish line.
The Benefits of Hackathons
Hackathons provide value both for the companies that organize them and the people who take part. Companies can use them to quickly discover new ideas or overcome challenges, for example, while participants can enjoy testing their skills, innovating, networking, and working either alone or as part of a larger team.
Benefits for Companies and Sponsors
Many of the world’s biggest brands have come to rely on hackathons as ways to drive innovation and uncover new products, services, and opportunities. Meta, for example, the brand behind Facebook, has organized dozens of hackathons, some of which have led to the development of well-known Facebook features, like the “Like” button. Here’s how hackathons help companies:
- Accelerate Innovation: In fast-moving fields like technology, companies can’t always afford to spend months or years working on new products or features. They need to be able to solve problems quickly, and hackathons create the necessary conditions to deliver rapid success.
- Employee Development: Leading companies like Meta have started to use annual hackathons as a way to not only test their workforce’s skills but to give employees opportunities to push themselves and broaden their skill sets.
- Internal Networking: Hackathons also double up as networking events. They give employees from different teams, departments, or branches the chance to work with and learn from one another. This, in turn, can promote or reinforce team-oriented work cultures.
- Talent Spotting: Talents sometimes go unnoticed, but hackathons give your workforce’s hidden gems a chance to shine. They’re terrific opportunities to see who your best problem solvers and most creative thinkers at.
- Improving Reputation: Organizing regular hackathons helps set companies apart from their competitors, demonstrating their commitment to innovation and their willingness to embrace new ideas. If you want your brand to seem more forward-thinking and innovative, embracing hackathons is a great way to go about it.
Benefits for Participants
The hackers, developers, students, engineers, and other people who take part in hackathons arguably enjoy even bigger and better benefits than the businesses behind them. These events are often invaluable when it comes to upskilling, networking, and growing, both personally and professionally. Here are some of the main benefits for participants, explained:
- Learning and Improvement: Hackathons are golden opportunities for participants to gain knowledge and skills. They essentially force people to work together, sharing ideas, contributing to the collective, and pushing their own boundaries in pursuit of a common goal.
- Networking: While some hackathons are purely internal, others bring together different teams or groups of people from different schools, businesses, and places around the world. This can be wonderful for forming connections with like-minded individuals.
- Sense of Pride: Everyone feels a sense of pride after accomplishing a project or achieving a goal, but this often comes at the end of weeks or months of effort. With hackathons, participants can enjoy that same satisfying feeling after just a few hours or a couple of days of hard work.
- Testing Oneself: A hackathon is an amazing chance to put one’s skills to the test and see what one is truly capable of when given a set goal to aim for and a deadline to meet. Many participants are surprised to see how well they respond to these conditions.
- Boosting Skills: Hackathons provide the necessary conditions to hone and improve a range of core soft skills, such as teamwork, communication, problem-solving, organization, and punctuality. By the end, participants often emerge with more confidence in their abilities.
Hackathons at OPIT
The Open Institute of Technology (OPIT) understands the unique value of hackathons and has played its part in sponsoring these kinds of events in the past. OPIT was one of the sponsors behind ESCPHackathon 6, for example, which involved 120 students given AI-related tasks, with mentorship and guidance from senior professionals and developers from established brands along the way.
Marco Fediuc, one of the participants, summed up the mood in his comments:
“The hackathon was a truly rewarding experience. I had the pleasure of meeting OPIT classmates and staff and getting to know them better, the chance to collaborate with brilliant minds, and the opportunity to take part in an exciting and fun event.
“Participating turned out to be very useful because I had the chance to work in a fast-paced, competitive environment, and it taught me what it means to stay calm and perform under pressure… To prospective Computer Science students, should a similar opportunity arise, I can clearly say: Don’t underestimate yourselves!”
The new year will also see the arrival of OPIT Hackathon 2026, giving more students the chance to test their skills, broaden their networks, and enjoy the one-of-a-kind experiences that these events never fail to deliver. This event is scheduled to be held February 13-15, 2026, and is open to all OPIT Bachelor’s and Master’s students, along with recent graduates. Interested parties have until February 1 to register.
Read the articleThe Open Institute of Technology (OPIT) recently held its first-ever career fair to showcase its wide array of career education options and services. Representatives from numerous high-profile international companies were in attendance, and students enjoyed unprecedented opportunities to connect with business leaders, expand their professional networks, and pave the way for success in their future careers.
Here’s a look back at the event and how it ties into OPIT’s diverse scope of career services.
Introducing OPIT
For those who aren’t yet familiar, OPIT is an EU-accredited Higher Education Institution, offering online degrees in technological fields such as computer science, data science, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and digital business. Aimed at making high-level tech education accessible to all, OPIT has assembled a stellar team of tutors and experts to train the tech leaders of tomorrow.
The First OPIT Career Fair
OPIT’s first career fair was held on November 19 and 20. And as with OPIT’s lectures, it was an exclusively online event, which ensured that every attendee had equal access to key lectures and information. Interested potential students from all over the world were able to enjoy the same great experience, demonstrating a core principle that OPIT has championed from the very start – the principles of accessibility and the power of virtual learning.
More than a dozen leading international companies took part in the event, with the full guest list including representatives from:
- Deloitte
- Dylog Hitech
- EDIST Engineering Srl
- Tinexta Cyber
- Datapizza
- RWS Group
- WE GRELE FRANCE
- Avatar Investments
- Planet Farms
- Coolshop
- Hoist Finance Italia
- Gruppo Buffetti S.p.A
- Nesperia Group
- Fusion AI Labs
- Intesi Group
- Reply
- Mindsight Ventures
This was a fascinating mix of established enterprises and emerging players. Deloitte, for example, is one of the largest professional services networks in the world in terms of both revenue and number of employees. Mindsight Ventures, meanwhile, is a newer but rapidly emerging name in the fields of AI and business intelligence.
The Response
The first OPIT career fair was a success, with many students in attendance expressing their joy at being able to connect with such a strong lineup of prospective employers.
OPIT Founder and Director Riccardo Ocleppo had this to say:
“I often say internally that our connection with companies – through masterclasses, thesis and capstone projects, and career opportunities – is the ‘cherry on the cake’ of the OPIT experience!
“It’s also a core part of our mission: making higher education more practical, more connected, and more aligned with what happens in the real world.
“Our first Career Fair says a lot about our commitment to building an end-to-end learning and professional growth experience for our community of students.
“Thank you to the Student and Career Services team, and to Stefania Tabi for making this possible.”
Representatives from some of the companies that attended also shared positive impressions of the event. A representative from Nesperia Group, for example, said:
“Nesperia Group would like to thank OPIT for the warm welcome we received during the OPIT Career Day. We were pleased to be part of the event because we met many talented young professionals. Their curiosity and their professional attitude really impressed us, and it’s clear that OPIT is doing an excellent job supporting their growth. We really believe that events like these are important because they can create a strong connection between companies and future professionals.”
The Future
Given the enormous success of the first OPIT career fair, it’s highly likely that students will be able to enjoy more events like this in the years to come. OPIT is clearly committed to making the most of its strong business connections and remarkable network to provide opportunities for growth, development, and employment, bringing students and businesses together.
Future events will continue to allow students to connect with some of the biggest businesses in the world, along with emerging names in the most exciting and innovative tech fields. This should allow OPIT graduates to enter the working world with strong networks and firm connections already established. That, in turn, should make it easier for them to access and enjoy a wealth of beneficial professional opportunities.
Given that OPIT also has partnerships in place with numerous other leading organizations, like Hype, AWS, and Accenture, the number and variety of the companies potentially making appearances at career fairs in the future should no doubt increase dramatically.
Other Career Services at OPIT
The career fair is just one of many ways in which OPIT leverages its company connections and offers professional opportunities and career support to its students. Other key career services include:
- Career Coaching: Students are able to schedule one-on-one sessions with their own mentors and career advisors. They can receive feedback on their resumes, practice and improve their interview skills, or work on clear action plans that align with their exact professional goals.
- Resource Hub: The OPIT Resource Hub is jam-packed with helpful guides and other resources to help students plan out and take smart steps in their professional endeavors. With detailed insights and practical tips, it can help tech graduates get off to the best possible start.
- Career Events: The career fair is only one of several planned career-related events organized by OPIT. Other events are planned to give students the chance to learn from and engage with industry experts and leading tech firms, with workshops, career skills days, and more.
- Internships: OPIT continues to support students after graduation, offering internship opportunities with leading tech firms around the world. These internships are invaluable for gaining experience and forging connections, setting graduates up for future success.
- Peer Mentoring: OPIT also offers a peer mentoring program in which existing students can team up with OPIT alumni to enjoy the benefits of their experience and unique insights.
These services – combined with the recent career day – clearly demonstrate OPIT’s commitment to not merely educating the tech leaders of the future, but also to supporting their personal and professional development beyond the field of education, making it easier for them to enter the working world with strong connections and unrivaled opportunities.
-
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Related posts
Bring talented tech experts together, set them a challenge, and give them a deadline. Then, let them loose and watch the magic happen. That, in a nutshell, is what hackathons are all about. They’re proven to be among the most productive tech events when it comes to solving problems and accelerating innovation.
What Is a Hackathon?
Put simply, a hackathon is a short-term event – often lasting just a couple of days, or sometimes even only a matter of hours – where tech experts come together to solve a specific problem or come up with ideas based on a central theme or topic. As an example, teams might be tasked with discovering a new way to use AI in marketing or to create an app aimed at improving student life.
The term combines the words “hack” and “marathon,” due to how participants (hackers or programmers) are encouraged to work around-the-clock to create a prototype, proof-of-concept, or new solution. It’s similar to how marathon runners are encouraged to keep running, putting their skills and endurance to the test in a race to the finish line.
The Benefits of Hackathons
Hackathons provide value both for the companies that organize them and the people who take part. Companies can use them to quickly discover new ideas or overcome challenges, for example, while participants can enjoy testing their skills, innovating, networking, and working either alone or as part of a larger team.
Benefits for Companies and Sponsors
Many of the world’s biggest brands have come to rely on hackathons as ways to drive innovation and uncover new products, services, and opportunities. Meta, for example, the brand behind Facebook, has organized dozens of hackathons, some of which have led to the development of well-known Facebook features, like the “Like” button. Here’s how hackathons help companies:
- Accelerate Innovation: In fast-moving fields like technology, companies can’t always afford to spend months or years working on new products or features. They need to be able to solve problems quickly, and hackathons create the necessary conditions to deliver rapid success.
- Employee Development: Leading companies like Meta have started to use annual hackathons as a way to not only test their workforce’s skills but to give employees opportunities to push themselves and broaden their skill sets.
- Internal Networking: Hackathons also double up as networking events. They give employees from different teams, departments, or branches the chance to work with and learn from one another. This, in turn, can promote or reinforce team-oriented work cultures.
- Talent Spotting: Talents sometimes go unnoticed, but hackathons give your workforce’s hidden gems a chance to shine. They’re terrific opportunities to see who your best problem solvers and most creative thinkers at.
- Improving Reputation: Organizing regular hackathons helps set companies apart from their competitors, demonstrating their commitment to innovation and their willingness to embrace new ideas. If you want your brand to seem more forward-thinking and innovative, embracing hackathons is a great way to go about it.
Benefits for Participants
The hackers, developers, students, engineers, and other people who take part in hackathons arguably enjoy even bigger and better benefits than the businesses behind them. These events are often invaluable when it comes to upskilling, networking, and growing, both personally and professionally. Here are some of the main benefits for participants, explained:
- Learning and Improvement: Hackathons are golden opportunities for participants to gain knowledge and skills. They essentially force people to work together, sharing ideas, contributing to the collective, and pushing their own boundaries in pursuit of a common goal.
- Networking: While some hackathons are purely internal, others bring together different teams or groups of people from different schools, businesses, and places around the world. This can be wonderful for forming connections with like-minded individuals.
- Sense of Pride: Everyone feels a sense of pride after accomplishing a project or achieving a goal, but this often comes at the end of weeks or months of effort. With hackathons, participants can enjoy that same satisfying feeling after just a few hours or a couple of days of hard work.
- Testing Oneself: A hackathon is an amazing chance to put one’s skills to the test and see what one is truly capable of when given a set goal to aim for and a deadline to meet. Many participants are surprised to see how well they respond to these conditions.
- Boosting Skills: Hackathons provide the necessary conditions to hone and improve a range of core soft skills, such as teamwork, communication, problem-solving, organization, and punctuality. By the end, participants often emerge with more confidence in their abilities.
Hackathons at OPIT
The Open Institute of Technology (OPIT) understands the unique value of hackathons and has played its part in sponsoring these kinds of events in the past. OPIT was one of the sponsors behind ESCPHackathon 6, for example, which involved 120 students given AI-related tasks, with mentorship and guidance from senior professionals and developers from established brands along the way.
Marco Fediuc, one of the participants, summed up the mood in his comments:
“The hackathon was a truly rewarding experience. I had the pleasure of meeting OPIT classmates and staff and getting to know them better, the chance to collaborate with brilliant minds, and the opportunity to take part in an exciting and fun event.
“Participating turned out to be very useful because I had the chance to work in a fast-paced, competitive environment, and it taught me what it means to stay calm and perform under pressure… To prospective Computer Science students, should a similar opportunity arise, I can clearly say: Don’t underestimate yourselves!”
The new year will also see the arrival of OPIT Hackathon 2026, giving more students the chance to test their skills, broaden their networks, and enjoy the one-of-a-kind experiences that these events never fail to deliver. This event is scheduled to be held February 13-15, 2026, and is open to all OPIT Bachelor’s and Master’s students, along with recent graduates. Interested parties have until February 1 to register.
The Open Institute of Technology (OPIT) recently held its first-ever career fair to showcase its wide array of career education options and services. Representatives from numerous high-profile international companies were in attendance, and students enjoyed unprecedented opportunities to connect with business leaders, expand their professional networks, and pave the way for success in their future careers.
Here’s a look back at the event and how it ties into OPIT’s diverse scope of career services.
Introducing OPIT
For those who aren’t yet familiar, OPIT is an EU-accredited Higher Education Institution, offering online degrees in technological fields such as computer science, data science, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and digital business. Aimed at making high-level tech education accessible to all, OPIT has assembled a stellar team of tutors and experts to train the tech leaders of tomorrow.
The First OPIT Career Fair
OPIT’s first career fair was held on November 19 and 20. And as with OPIT’s lectures, it was an exclusively online event, which ensured that every attendee had equal access to key lectures and information. Interested potential students from all over the world were able to enjoy the same great experience, demonstrating a core principle that OPIT has championed from the very start – the principles of accessibility and the power of virtual learning.
More than a dozen leading international companies took part in the event, with the full guest list including representatives from:
- Deloitte
- Dylog Hitech
- EDIST Engineering Srl
- Tinexta Cyber
- Datapizza
- RWS Group
- WE GRELE FRANCE
- Avatar Investments
- Planet Farms
- Coolshop
- Hoist Finance Italia
- Gruppo Buffetti S.p.A
- Nesperia Group
- Fusion AI Labs
- Intesi Group
- Reply
- Mindsight Ventures
This was a fascinating mix of established enterprises and emerging players. Deloitte, for example, is one of the largest professional services networks in the world in terms of both revenue and number of employees. Mindsight Ventures, meanwhile, is a newer but rapidly emerging name in the fields of AI and business intelligence.
The Response
The first OPIT career fair was a success, with many students in attendance expressing their joy at being able to connect with such a strong lineup of prospective employers.
OPIT Founder and Director Riccardo Ocleppo had this to say:
“I often say internally that our connection with companies – through masterclasses, thesis and capstone projects, and career opportunities – is the ‘cherry on the cake’ of the OPIT experience!
“It’s also a core part of our mission: making higher education more practical, more connected, and more aligned with what happens in the real world.
“Our first Career Fair says a lot about our commitment to building an end-to-end learning and professional growth experience for our community of students.
“Thank you to the Student and Career Services team, and to Stefania Tabi for making this possible.”
Representatives from some of the companies that attended also shared positive impressions of the event. A representative from Nesperia Group, for example, said:
“Nesperia Group would like to thank OPIT for the warm welcome we received during the OPIT Career Day. We were pleased to be part of the event because we met many talented young professionals. Their curiosity and their professional attitude really impressed us, and it’s clear that OPIT is doing an excellent job supporting their growth. We really believe that events like these are important because they can create a strong connection between companies and future professionals.”
The Future
Given the enormous success of the first OPIT career fair, it’s highly likely that students will be able to enjoy more events like this in the years to come. OPIT is clearly committed to making the most of its strong business connections and remarkable network to provide opportunities for growth, development, and employment, bringing students and businesses together.
Future events will continue to allow students to connect with some of the biggest businesses in the world, along with emerging names in the most exciting and innovative tech fields. This should allow OPIT graduates to enter the working world with strong networks and firm connections already established. That, in turn, should make it easier for them to access and enjoy a wealth of beneficial professional opportunities.
Given that OPIT also has partnerships in place with numerous other leading organizations, like Hype, AWS, and Accenture, the number and variety of the companies potentially making appearances at career fairs in the future should no doubt increase dramatically.
Other Career Services at OPIT
The career fair is just one of many ways in which OPIT leverages its company connections and offers professional opportunities and career support to its students. Other key career services include:
- Career Coaching: Students are able to schedule one-on-one sessions with their own mentors and career advisors. They can receive feedback on their resumes, practice and improve their interview skills, or work on clear action plans that align with their exact professional goals.
- Resource Hub: The OPIT Resource Hub is jam-packed with helpful guides and other resources to help students plan out and take smart steps in their professional endeavors. With detailed insights and practical tips, it can help tech graduates get off to the best possible start.
- Career Events: The career fair is only one of several planned career-related events organized by OPIT. Other events are planned to give students the chance to learn from and engage with industry experts and leading tech firms, with workshops, career skills days, and more.
- Internships: OPIT continues to support students after graduation, offering internship opportunities with leading tech firms around the world. These internships are invaluable for gaining experience and forging connections, setting graduates up for future success.
- Peer Mentoring: OPIT also offers a peer mentoring program in which existing students can team up with OPIT alumni to enjoy the benefits of their experience and unique insights.
These services – combined with the recent career day – clearly demonstrate OPIT’s commitment to not merely educating the tech leaders of the future, but also to supporting their personal and professional development beyond the field of education, making it easier for them to enter the working world with strong connections and unrivaled opportunities.
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