By Erick D. Wikum

My passion for mathematics began at an early age. At age four, I would crawl under the table (to avoid the gaze of my three sisters) to figure out math problems posed by my father. My first-grade math teacher let me work at my own pace, and I finished two years of math in one year. From that point on, I took math classes with the class ahead of me and took college calculus as a high school senior (now commonplace). At the U.S. Air Force Academy, I majored in mathematics and operations research. Operations research applies mathematics to derive insights and to inform better decisions based on data. I went on to earn a master’s degree and Ph.D. in operations research from Georgia Tech.

For over 30 years, I’ve worked in operations research in industry. Earlier in my career, I served as an internal consultant for the U.S. Air Force, Norfolk Southern Railroad, and Schneider. My common areas of focus with these large organizations included transportation, logistics, and supply chain. I served in various technical roles as well as management roles including manager and director.

In August 2008, I decided to try my hand at independent consulting. Unfortunately, just a month later, the 2008 financial crisis began with the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Companies were struggling to hang onto employees and were certainly not interested in retaining outsiders like me. Moreover, I discovered that I didn’t really understand what I was selling, or how to sell my services.

To grow my understanding of the business of consulting, I subsequently joined IBM as an analytics consultant. That experience, as well as a follow-on stint working for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) helped me to learn beneficial consulting skills and how to sell analytics consulting services to potential clients.

In 2017, I tried independent consulting again and formed Wikalytics, LLC. This time, I had good success. I landed a one-month project for a major retailer and five- months later, the first of many projects for an international agribusiness company. I subsequently secured short- and long-term projects for Class I railroads through two large consulting firms.

I attribute my success as an independent consultant over the past seven years to three things. First, the economy has been strong and demand for analytics has grown rapidly. Second, I developed technical skills (especially in the context of projects), industry expertise, and consulting skills. Third, I leveraged my personal network, mostly gained through my active involvement over many years in a professional organization (INFORMS).

Not all my project work has involved math. For example, I assisted in a long-term project to modernize a company’s COBOL-based transportation management system. Math primarily enters my work in two ways—developing tools and conducting analyses. Among the tools I have developed are a calculator to assess financial aspects of a prospective merger target and an application to aid farmers in selecting an optimal portfolio of corn hybrids to grow. Analyses I have completed include an assessment of the queuing versus processing times for a multi-step routing application, and an assessment of alternative sorting strategies in an e-commerce warehouse.

Being an independent consultant can be rewarding but does have its drawbacks. For one, finding customers is time-consuming and uncompensated. For another, one often does not have visibility to what happens after a project ends. Were deliverables utilized or simply placed on the shelf? A solo consultant, whether working through a consulting firm or for an organization, is a small fish and as such, has little control over agreement terms or project direction.

With a focus on deadlines and deliverables, consulting can be stressful, but also very fulfilling. Producing deliverables that exceed a customer’s expectations, but more importantly, helps the customer make better, data-driven decisions, is quite rewarding. For those who would like to consider independent consulting, I offer the following advice:

1. Identify the products or services you will offer as reviewed by your trusted advisor(s).
2. Learn consulting skills, perhaps by working for a quality consulting firm.
3. Become an expert in an industry of your choosing, able to speak knowledgeably about challenges, concepts, terminology, etc.
4. Become an active member of a professional organization and build your network.
5. Build a cash cushion to cover lulls and payment delays.