From Operational Excellence to Strategic Consultancy: Redefining Business Management Roles in Industrial Food Enterprises

Industrial food enterprises operate within highly complex environments shaped by regulatory intensity, operational scale, food safety requirements, and volatile market conditions. For decades, business management within this sector has been dominated by an operational excellence paradigm, emphasizing efficiency, standardization, cost control, and process optimization. While this approach has delivered significant productivity gains, it increasingly proves insufficient for addressing strategic uncertainty, competitive differentiation, and long-term value creation in contemporary food markets. This paper argues that business management roles in industrial food enterprises are undergoing a fundamental transformation—from primarily operational execution toward a more consultative, strategic function. Rather than focusing solely on managing processes, modern business managers are required to interpret market signals, advise top management, integrate cross-functional knowledge, and support strategic decision-making. The study conceptualizes this shift as a transition from operational excellence to strategic consultancy embedded within the management function itself. Building on business management theory and industry-specific dynamics, the paper develops a conceptual framework that explains how consultative managerial roles emerge, what capabilities they require, and how they reshape organizational decision-making in industrial food enterprises. By reframing business management as a strategic advisory function rather than a purely operational role, the study contributes to management literature and offers practical insights for organizations seeking to enhance long-term competitiveness in the industrial food sector.