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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consultant#Types_of_consultant

For other uses, see Consultant (disambiguation).

For Senior Physician Consultant, see Consultant (medicine).

A consultant (from Latin: consultare "to deliberate") is a professional who provides expert advice^[1] in a particular area such as security (electronic or physical), management, education, accountancy, law, human resources, marketing (and public relations), finance, engineering, science or any of many other specialized fields.

A consultant is usually an expert or an experienced professional in a specific field and has a wide knowledge of the subject matter.^[2] The role of consultant outside the medical sphere (where the term is used specifically for a grade of doctor) can fall under one of two general categories:

Internal consultant: someone who operates within an organization but is available to be consulted on areas of their specialization by other departments or individuals (acting as clients); or
External consultant: someone who is employed externally to the client (either by a consulting firm or some other agency) whose expertise is provided on a temporary basis, usually for a fee. Consulting firms range in size from sole proprietorships consisting of a single consultant, small businesses consisting of a small number of consultants, to mid- to large consulting firms, which in some cases are multinational corporations. This type of consultant generally engages with multiple and changing clients, which are typically companies, non-profit organizations, or governments.

By hiring a consultant, clients have access to deeper levels of expertise than would be financially feasible for them to retain in-house on a long-term basis. Moreover, clients can control their expenditures on consulting services by only purchasing as much services from the outside consultant as desired.

Consultants provide their advice to their clients in a variety of forms. Reports and presentations are often used. However, in some specialized fields, the consultant may develop customized software or other products for the client. Depending on the nature of the consulting services and the wishes of the client, the advice from the consultant may be made public, by placing the report or presentation online, or the advice may be kept confidential, and only given to the senior executives of the organization paying for the consulting services^[3].

Common types

In the business, and as of recently the private sphere, the most commonly found consultants are:

3D Consultants who are specialists in the field of 3D scanning, printing, modeling, designing, engineering, building, and everything that has to do with the three dimensions.
Business transformation consultants are specialists in assisting business stakeholders to align the strategy and objectives to their business operations. This may include assisting in the identification of business change opportunities and capability gaps, defining solutions to enable required business capability (this may include technology, organisational, or process solutions) and supporting the implementation of these changes across the business.
Engineering consultants provide engineering-related services such as design, supervision, execution, repair, operation, maintenance, technology, creation of drawings and specifications, and make recommendations to public, companies, firms and industries.
Educational consultants assists students or parents in making educational decisions and giving advices in various issues, such as tuition fees, visa, and enrolling at Higher education
Human-resources (HR) consultants who provide expertise around employment practice and people management.
Immigration consultant who helps through legal procedure of immigration from one country to other country.
Internet consultants who are specialists in business use of the internet and keep themselves up-to-date with new and changed capabilities offered by the web. Ideally internet consultants also have practical experience and expertise in management skills such as strategic planning, change, projects, processes, training, team-working and customer satisfaction.
Information-technology (IT) consultants in many disciplines such as computer hardware, software engineering, or networks.
Interim managers as mentioned above may be independent consultants who act as interim executives with decision-making power under corporate policies or statutes. They may sit on specially constituted boards or committees.
Marketing consultants who are generally called upon to advise around areas of product development and related marketing matters including marketing strategy.
Process consultants who are specialists in the design or improvement of operational processes and can be specific to the industry or sector.
Public-relations (PR) consultants dealing specifically with public relations matters external to the client organization and often engaged on a semi-permanent basis by larger organizations to provide input and guidance.
Performance consultants who focus on the execution of an initiative or overall performance of their client.
Sales consultants who focus on all levels of sales and marketing for the improvement of sales ROI and moving share from competition
Strategy consultants (AKA management consultants) working on the development of and improvements to organizational strategy alongside senior management in many industries.

A more comprehensive list of types is shown below.

Consulting

To Process

Common types

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