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Question answered in Quora - What is the difference between a project controller and consultant?


Project Controller sounds like a Project Manager, may be in a much more specialized area. A Project Manager is a Leader that owns the project, he is responsible to successfully execute that project and produce the intended results, leading the project team, being a torch bearer, setting clear goals that the team needs to accomplish. Typically he will meet with the Project Sponsor, who is providing the budget to execute this project, define the scope of the project, secure the resources that will work on the project, then will come up with a Project Plan with the list of tasks that need to be done, he will come up with a timeline, he might go back and work with Project Sponsor on the budget that is required or he might scope it and agree on the deliverables based on the limited budget that is provided. Then Project Manager will bring in the resources define the deliverables and get the work done with the help of the resources. He will manage the day to day aspects of the project, make sure the team is hitting the mile stones, making progress and so forth. He also keeps the sponsor and associated team members upto date on the project progress and also brings up any surprises early on. At the end the Project Manager has to evaluate everything and deliver the deliverables.

Typically the Project Manager is the most important person in a Project, he might rely on others in the team, meaning there may be several other people in the team that may be important for him, but he owns the project. If the project does not meet the timeline or does not deliver the deliverables, usually he gets penalized of fired.

Whereas a Consultant is an expert in his chosen discipline, which is often called his Domain, he is often called a Domain Expert. A Consultant could be a Sales Consultant, Marketing Consultant, Strategy Consultant, Supply Chain Consultant, could be anybody. A strategy consultant can come in provide an business strategy on how the business can meet its revenue targets, a Supply Chain Consultant can come in and help optimize goods flow in your Supply Chain Network, or help design a Supply Chain Network, can provide pointers on where you should locate your distribution centers, where the manufacturing plant needs to be depending on where your customers are, depending on where the labor is least expensive to manufacture the product and distribute the product you sell.

So a consultant could come in and provide a broad strategy to optimize a Supply Chain Network, then a Project Manager gets assigned to execute on that project, get all those tasks done and meet the goals of the Optimizing the Supply Chain Network Project and the deliverable will be meeting the through put numbers through the Supply Chain that is considered optimal for that type of Supply Chain.

Also check out my book Puga Sankara's Supply Chain Blog - that is a must read before spending Hundreds & Thousands of $$$ on your MBA or Masters Degree to get the best ROI or before starting your Entrepreneurial journey.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Puga Sankara is the co-founder of Smart Gladiator LLC. Smart Gladiator designs, builds, and delivers market-leading mobile technology consisting of Smart Gladiator Wearable Scanguns, Tablets, Mobile Tech & Apps for retailers, distributors, and 3PL service providers. So far, Smart Gladiator Wearables have been used to ship, receive, and scan more than 100 million boxes. Users love them for the lightweight, easy-to-use soft overlay keyboard, texting&video chatting ability, data collection ability etc. Puga is a supply chain technology professional with more than 17 years of experience in deploying capabilities in the logistics and supply chain domain. His prior roles involved managing complicated mission-critical programs driving revenue numbers, rolling out a multitude of capabilities involving more than a dozen systems, and managing a team of 30 to 50 personnel across multiple disciplines and departments in large corporations such as Hewlett Packard. He has deployed WMS for more than 30 distribution centers in his role as a senior manager with Manhattan Associates. He has also performed process analysis walk-throughs for more than 50 distribution centers for WMS process design and performance analysis review, optimizing processes for better productivity and visibility through the supply chain. Size of these DCs varied from 150,000 to 1.2 million SQFT. Puga Sankara has an MBA from Georgia Tech. He can be reached at puga@smartgladiator.com or visit the company at www.smartgladiator.com. Also follow him at www.pugasankara.com

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