Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Business Support Consultant

🎯 Role Definition

A Business Support Consultant provides operational, analytical and stakeholder-facing support that ensures business units run efficiently and meet commercial objectives. This role combines project coordination, process improvement, reporting and customer-facing escalation management. The consultant works cross-functionally with Sales, Finance, IT and Customer Success to improve workflows, deliver accurate reporting, maintain SLAs, and implement automation and control frameworks. Ideal candidates are data-literate, comfortable with CRM/ERP tools, experienced in stakeholder engagement, and driven to translate business problems into scalable operational solutions.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Business Support Analyst / Business Operations Analyst
Operations Coordinator / Customer Service Coordinator
Sales Support Specialist or Junior Project Coordinator

Advancement To:

Senior Business Support Consultant
Operations Manager / Head of Business Operations
Program Manager or Business Process Manager
Commercial Operations Lead or Operational Excellence Manager

Lateral Moves:

Sales Operations / Revenue Operations
Customer Success or Account Management
Project Management / PMO

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Act as the primary operational liaison between business stakeholders (Sales, Finance, Product, Customer Success) to ensure timely resolution of process issues, escalations and cross-functional dependencies.
Manage and prioritize inbound business requests, incident tickets and escalations, ensuring SLA adherence, root-cause investigation and permanent corrective actions.
Prepare, validate and distribute daily/weekly/monthly management reports, KPI dashboards and executive summaries using Excel, Power BI or Tableau to inform decision-making.
Perform detailed data analysis and reconciliations (orders, invoices, commissions, usage) to identify discrepancies, propose fixes, and coordinate corrective action with Finance and Billing teams.
Own order-to-cash and contract administration tasks including order entry, amendments, pricing validation, and contract data management in CRM/ERP systems.
Lead process improvement initiatives (Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen) to reduce manual effort, decrease cycle times and increase first-time-right rates across operational workflows.
Document, maintain and socialize standard operating procedures (SOPs), process maps and knowledge base articles to ensure operational consistency and scalability.
Coordinate end-to-end project activities for small-to-medium operational projects: define scope, manage timelines, track risks and communicate status to stakeholders.
Implement and manage automation or workflow improvements using RPA tools, scripting or platform configuration to reduce repetitive work and error rates.
Conduct business requirement gathering sessions, translate requirements into functional specifications and collaborate with IT or development teams for implementations.
Monitor SLA and performance metrics, run trend analysis and recommend corrective actions to service delivery and leadership.
Validate and process vendor and partner invoices, support dispute resolution and ensure timely payments in collaboration with Accounts Payable.
Support month-end and quarter-end operational close activities, including reconciliations, accruals and ad-hoc financial analysis.
Support CRM and master data hygiene activities including deduplication, data enrichment, and validation to maintain accurate customer and product records.
Facilitate cross-functional workshops, training sessions and onboarding for new hires to operational tools, processes and best practices.
Conduct risk and compliance reviews related to contracts, billing practices, privacy requirements (GDPR), and internal control frameworks; escalate findings and implement remediation plans.
Build and present business cases, cost-benefit analyses and ROI assessments to prioritize operational initiatives and secure stakeholder buy-in.
Serve as escalation point for high-impact customer issues; coordinate rapid response, cross-team remediation and post-incident reviews to prevent recurrence.
Track and report improvements from operational initiatives (time savings, cost reductions, error rate declines) and document lessons learned for continual improvement.
Support sales enablement activities including quote-to-cash support, pricing logic validation, proposal coordination and rebate/commission calculations.
Coordinate resource allocation, capacity planning and workload forecasting to ensure teams are appropriately staffed during peak cycles.
Maintain strong vendor and third-party relationships, manage SLAs with outsourced providers and perform periodic performance reviews.
Drive adoption of new tools, process changes and technology rollouts by building champions, providing training and measuring adoption metrics.
Continuously scan for regulatory or market changes that impact operational processes and update procedures accordingly.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
Assist with RFP, tender and procurement processes as needed.
Support ad-hoc internal audits and supplier due diligence.
Maintain and curate a searchable knowledge repository for common operational issues and fixes.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Advanced Microsoft Excel (pivot tables, vlookups/xlookups, Power Query, macros) for complex data manipulation and reconciliation.
Data visualization and dashboarding: Power BI, Tableau or equivalent to create executive-level reports.
SQL querying for data extraction, validation and analysis from transactional systems.
CRM experience (Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics) including order management, opportunity and contract administration.
ERP familiarity (SAP, Oracle NetSuite) for transactional reconciliations and finance collaboration.
Experience with ticketing and workflow tools (ServiceNow, Jira, Zendesk) for request management and SLA tracking.
Basic scripting or automation familiarity (RPA tools like UiPath, Automation Anywhere, or Python scripting) to drive process automation.
Financial literacy: invoicing, accounts reconciliation, revenue recognition basics and month-end support.
Process mapping and continuous improvement tools (Visio, Miro, Lean/Six Sigma methodology).
Reporting & analytics mindset: KPI design, SLA monitoring and trend analysis.
Knowledge of data privacy and compliance frameworks (GDPR, SOX controls) desirable.
Familiarity with order-to-cash and quote-to-cash processes and systems.

Soft Skills

Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills — able to translate technical findings into business-friendly recommendations.
Strong analytical thinking and problem-solving with attention to detail and data accuracy.
Proven ability to prioritize in a fast-paced environment and manage multiple competing deadlines.
Collaborative team player with experience facilitating cross-functional workshops and driving consensus.
Customer-centric mindset with a pragmatic approach to resolving escalations and improving experience.
Change-agent mentality: comfortable leading adoption and influencing without direct authority.
Resilience and adaptability to evolving business priorities and process changes.
Strong organizational skills, documentation discipline and knowledge transfer abilities.
Critical thinking and sound judgment when escalating issues or proposing solutions.
Coaching and training capability to upskill teammates and business users.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Finance, Economics, Management, Information Systems or a related field.

Preferred Education:

Bachelor’s plus additional certification in Project Management (PMP, Prince2) or Process Improvement (Lean/Six Sigma).
Master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA) or related advanced degree is a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Business Administration / Operations Management
Finance / Accounting / Economics
Information Systems / Data Analytics
Project Management / Industrial Engineering

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 2 - 7 years in business operations, business support, sales operations, or consulting roles.

Preferred:

3+ years supporting commercial or operational functions in SaaS, financial services, telecom, or professional services.
Demonstrated experience with CRM/ERP platforms, advanced Excel and dashboarding tools.
Experience driving process improvement initiatives and delivering measurable operational impact.