GEP is a global leader in procurement and supply chain, recognized by firms such as Gartner, Forrester, IDC, and Spend Matters for its award-winning, cloud-native platforms and consulting expertise. Headquartered in Clark, New Jersey, with 27 offices and operations centers across Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, GEP partners with enterprises to drive agility, resilience, and sustained value. Its integrated approach-combining software, digital solutions, and advisory services-helps clients accelerate strategic sourcing, optimize categories, and transform procurement operating models at scale. Within this ecosystem, the Consultant plays a pivotal role in delivering measurable outcomes, blending analytical rigor with sharp business judgment to solve complex, cross-border challenges.
This comprehensive guide provides essential insights into the Consultant at GEP, covering required skills, responsibilities, interview questions, and preparation strategies to help aspiring candidates succeed.
1. About the Consultant Role
As a Consultant at GEP, you will join global project teams serving enterprise clients across the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. The role centers on Strategic Sourcing, Category Management, and Procurement Transformation-owning workstreams that range from spend analysis and market assessments to supplier negotiations and change enablement. You are expected to manage multiple workstreams concurrently, synthesize data from diverse sources, and build executive-ready presentations that drive client decision-making. Clear communication, structured problem solving, and disciplined time management are essential to consistently deliver against cost, benefit, quality, and timeline goals.
Positioned within GEP’s consulting practice, Consultants collaborate closely with senior consultants, managers, and cross-functional experts-including product and analytics teams-to develop innovative solutions that maximize client value. You will operate in a highly collaborative, international environment, aligning with distributed stakeholders and flexing your schedule to match global time zones when needed. The role is critical to translating GEP’s thought leadership and platforms into tangible client impact, advancing transformation initiatives while building your consulting toolkit and domain expertise.
2. Required Skills and Qualifications
Success in this role requires strong communication and stakeholder management, analytical problem solving with sound business acumen, and the ability to prioritize and deliver across concurrent projects. An MBA background aligns well with the strategic, data-driven nature of the work. Some of these skills and attributes are mentioned generally and are not explicitly outlined in the job description, but are considered important for success in the role.
Educational Qualifications
- MBA from an accredited institution (0–3 years of experience as per the posting).
- No mandatory certifications; relevant coursework or internships in supply chain, procurement, operations, finance, or analytics can strengthen readiness.
Key Competencies
- Communication & Stakeholder Management: Convey complex analyses clearly, tailor messages to executives and suppliers, and handle Q&A confidently.
- Analytical Problem Solving: Structure ambiguous problems, use data to generate insights, and triangulate findings from multiple sources.
- Business Acumen: Connect recommendations to P&L impact, total cost of ownership, and risk/resilience considerations.
- Time Management & Prioritization: Manage multiple workstreams, estimate effort accurately, and reset expectations proactively.
- Proactive Ownership & Results Orientation: Take initiative, anticipate issues, and drive measurable outcomes against client goals.
Technical Skills
- Data Analysis & Modeling: Work confidently with spreadsheets and BI outputs to cleanse, segment, and baseline spend; build TCO comparisons.
- Presentation & Storytelling: Create executive-ready decks that synthesize insights, options, and recommendations; handle objections logically.
- Procurement Domain & Tools: Familiarity with source-to-pay concepts and platforms (e.g., GEP’s cloud-native suites) and RFx/e-auction fundamentals is advantageous.
3. Day-to-Day Responsibilities
Participate in global client consulting projects with GEP teams across the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.
- Global Project Engagement: Participate in client consulting projects with GEP teams across the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.
- Consulting Expertise: Provide guidance in Strategic Sourcing, Category Management, and Procurement Transformation.
- Project Management: Manage multiple projects concurrently, ensuring consistent delivery of high-quality results.
- Analysis & Insight: Conduct thorough analyses, ask insightful questions, and leverage appropriate data sources to drive informed decisions.
- Client Impact Focus: Understand how project work influences client goals related to cost, quality, and timelines, delivering actionable solutions.
- Collaboration & Innovation: Work closely with global project teams to develop innovative approaches that maximize client value.
- Presentation & Communication: Prepare and deliver executive-ready presentations, fully understanding the material and responding logically to client and internal queries.
- Timeline & Expectation Management: Accurately estimate project deadlines, adjust plans as needed, and manage expectations with clients and internal teams.
- Flexibility & Global Coordination: Work flexible hours to align effectively with teams across different geographies.
4. Key Competencies for Success
Beyond baseline skills, these competencies distinguish high-performing Consultants at GEP and accelerate client value delivery.
- Structured Thinking: Break down ambiguous problems into clear hypotheses, analysis plans, and decision criteria.
- Stakeholder Influence: Align diverse global stakeholders, balance priorities, and gain buy-in for change.
- Data-to-Decision Storytelling: Translate analytics into crisp narratives that drive executive decisions and action.
- Adaptability in Global Teams: Collaborate across time zones and cultures, adjusting communication and schedules as needed.
- Execution Discipline: Maintain momentum under pressure, course-correct quickly, and consistently meet quality bars.
5. Common Interview Questions
This section provides a selection of common interview questions to help candidates prepare effectively for their Consultant interview at GEP.
Give a concise, role-aligned narrative: education (MBA), relevant projects/internships, core skills, and why consulting at GEP.
Reference GEP’s leadership in procurement and supply chain, global footprint, and blend of software plus consulting that drives measurable impact.
Highlight structured problem solving, client impact, learning velocity, and your readiness to handle multi-workstream environments.
Use STAR; show planning, stakeholder updates, trade-offs, and on-time delivery with quality.
Demonstrate empathy, evidence-based persuasion, and alignment on decision criteria to move forward.
Show proactive issue spotting, hypothesis-driven action, and quantified results.
Share a concrete instance of applying feedback to improve deliverables or client outcomes.
Explain scheduling tactics, clear documentation, and handover practices to maintain momentum.
Connect motivation to client value, learning, collaboration, and measurable results.
Pick an example with clear metrics (savings, cycle time, quality) and your specific contribution.
Ground answers in outcomes and numbers where possible; align to GEP’s client value focus.
A structured, data-driven approach to optimize total value across spend-considering price, TCO, risk, and performance through market assessments and supplier strategies.
Spend baseline, opportunity assessment, strategy, RFx, evaluation, negotiation, award, contracting, and benefits tracking.
Price targets unit cost; TCO includes logistics, inventory, quality, switching, and lifecycle costs that affect true value.
Segment by value/risk (e.g., strategic, leverage, bottleneck, routine) to tailor governance, collaboration, and risk management.
Standardized specs, competitive supply base, sufficient volume, and clear award rules; not ideal for highly specialized or innovation-led buys.
Analytical estimate of fair cost based on inputs, process, and margins; strengthens negotiations and supplier collaboration.
Realized savings, compliance/adoption, cycle time, quality/OTIF, risk, stakeholder satisfaction, and digital adoption.
Assess demand, supply market, cost drivers, risks, and stakeholder needs; define levers, governance, and roadmap.
Clear scope/specs, evaluation criteria, data templates, timelines, Q&A protocol, and objective scoring methodology.
Cloud-native source-to-pay suites streamline data, workflows, and visibility-enabling consistent, scalable value delivery.
Anchor answers with simple frameworks and brief examples; keep definitions practical and outcome-oriented.
Outline cleansing, classification, triangulation with AP/PO, sampling, and sensitivity analysis; agree on assumptions with stakeholders.
Map concerns, build a TCO/risk case, run a pilot, define SLAs, and set a change/communication plan with checkpoints.
Assess impact/urgency, negotiate deadlines, delegate where possible, and communicate a revised plan with risks and mitigations.
Root-cause via SLA metrics, implement corrective actions, align incentives, and consider dual sourcing or re-bid if needed.
Reframe hypotheses, explore alternative drivers, gather missing data, and transparently update stakeholders.
Define scope, outcome-based specs, multi-criteria scoring, supplier Q&A, and staged evaluation (RFI → RFP → negotiation).
Introduce TCO and risk metrics, scenario analysis, and governance to balance savings with continuity and quality.
Validate data, isolate causes, adjust levers, extend pilot or redefine scope, and agree on go/no-go criteria.
Use secondary research, expert calls, adjacent benchmarks, and should-cost proxies to inform a pragmatic strategy.
Contract the terms, implement controls, track compliance and volumes, and report realization with variance analysis.
Use concise, stepwise answers (issue → analysis → action → outcome) to demonstrate structure under pressure.
Explain context, your role, analysis performed, negotiation levers used, and quantified impact.
Share segmentation, key cost drivers, supplier dynamics, and recommended strategy.
Detail the dataset, method, visualization, stakeholder reaction, and the final decision taken.
Focus on structure, story, objections handled, and outcome (e.g., sign-off or pilot).
Mention spreadsheets/BI for analysis and presentation tools for executive storytelling; tie to outcomes.
Validate with operations, define owners/timelines, include risk mitigations, and set tracking metrics.
Share objectives, preparation, negotiation approach, and measurable results.
Explain coordination methods, documentation, and how you managed time zones.
Align aspirations with category depth, analytics, negotiation, and transformation exposure.
Ask about typical project mix, mentorship, feedback cadence, and how success is measured.
Use resume bullets as launchpads for concise STAR stories; quantify results and clarify your unique contribution.
6. Common Topics and Areas of Focus for Interview Preparation
To excel in your Consultant role at GEP, it’s essential to focus on the following areas. These topics highlight the key responsibilities and expectations, preparing you to discuss your skills and experiences in a way that aligns with GEP objectives.
- Strategic Sourcing Fundamentals: Study sourcing lifecycles, RFx design, evaluation frameworks, negotiation levers, and benefits tracking to demonstrate end-to-end fluency.
- Category Management: Learn demand profiling, cost drivers, supplier market dynamics, risk frameworks, and strategy roadmapping for high-impact categories.
- TCO and Business Case Modeling: Practice modeling scenarios that incorporate logistics, quality, inventory, and switching costs to move beyond unit price.
- Supplier Management & Governance: Understand segmentation, performance metrics, SRM practices, and corrective action planning to sustain value post-award.
- Change Management in Procurement Transformation: Prepare to discuss stakeholder alignment, communication plans, adoption metrics, and operating model shifts.
7. Perks and Benefits of Working at GEP
GEP offers a comprehensive package of benefits to support the well-being, professional growth, and satisfaction of its employees. Here are some of the key perks you can expect
- Global Exposure: Collaborate with teams and clients across the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific on diverse, high-impact projects.
- Learning Organization: A culture that prizes individuality and continuous learning, offering opportunities for personal and professional growth.
- Innovative, Collaborative Culture: Work within a firm aspiring to be “the beautiful company,” emphasizing fulfillment, innovation, and teamwork.
- Merit and Impact Recognition: Reward structures that value measurable contributions and meaningful client outcomes.
- Flexible Collaboration: Opportunities to align work hours with global teams, building adaptability and cross-cultural skills.
8. Conclusion
GEP’s Consultant role blends data-driven problem solving with global client engagement to deliver strategic sourcing, category management, and procurement transformation outcomes. By mastering analytics, storytelling, and stakeholder influence-and demonstrating disciplined execution-you can create tangible value while accelerating your learning. Prepare to articulate end-to-end sourcing approaches, model TCO, and communicate trade-offs clearly. Embrace GEP’s learning culture and collaborative ethos to thrive on multi-market projects. With focused preparation and a results-first mindset, you’ll be ready to excel in interviews and on the job.
Tips for Interview Success:
- Lead with outcomes: Quantify savings, cycle-time cuts, or quality improvements in every story.
- Show structure: Use clear frameworks for sourcing, TCO, and change management in your answers.
- Tell a crisp story: Convert analysis into executive-ready narratives with options and trade-offs.
- Demonstrate global agility: Share examples of cross-time-zone collaboration and stakeholder alignment.