Advise others on business or operational matters
Part of the output can be produced by software today.
Software drafts well and sends at volume, and vertical support agents now resolve a large share of inbound questions end to end. What does not transfer is the relationship, and the judgment about when a message should not be sent at all.
| How automatable | Partly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Routine communication and explanation |
| Jobs that do it | 32 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Vertical agents, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Providing Consultation and Advice to Others (4.A.4.b.6) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 32 occupations that perform it.
- Advise business or other groups on local, national, or international factors affecting the buying or selling of products or services.
- Advise dealers and distributors on policies and operating procedures to ensure functional effectiveness of business.
- Advise management on short-term and long-term financial objectives, policies, and actions.
- Present investment information, such as product risks, fees, or fund performance statistics.
- Prepare management recommendations, such as proposed fee and tariff increases or schedule changes.
- Review and evaluate new and current programs to determine their efficiency, effectiveness, and compliance with state, local, and federal regulations and recommend any necessary modifications.
- Recommend personnel actions related to programs and services.
- Advise internal management or business partners on the implementation or operation of compliance programs.
- Advise retail establishments on development of loss-investigation procedures.
- Advise farm groups or growers on land preparation or livestock care techniques that will maximize the quantity and quality of production.
- Recommend mark-up rates, mark-down rates, or merchandise selling prices.
- Participate in the development of spill prevention programs and hazardous waste rules and regulations, and recommend corrective actions for hazardous waste problems.
- Suggest best methods of packaging or labeling products.
- Evaluate recruitment or selection criteria to ensure conformance to professional, statistical, or testing standards, recommending revisions, as needed.
- Document findings of study and prepare recommendations for implementation of new systems, procedures, or organizational changes.
- Provide technical or administrative support for sustainability programs or issues.
- Provide system design and integration recommendations.
- Report to management about asset utilization and audit results, and recommend changes in operations and financial activities.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for routine communication and explanation, and what it costs.
Drafting replies costs nothing beyond the assistant you already pay for. Only move to a support agent billed per resolution once the inbound volume is large enough that the per-resolution price beats the hour it takes you.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
32 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Accountants and Auditors
- Animal Scientists
- Bioinformatics Scientists
- Buyers and Purchasing Agents, Farm Products
- Compliance Managers
- Customs Brokers
- Economists
- Education Administrators, Kindergarten through Secondary
- Education and Childcare Administrators, Preschool and Daycare
- Energy Auditors
- Environmental Compliance Inspectors
- Environmental Science and Protection Technicians, Including Health
- Financial and Investment Analysts
- Financial Risk Specialists
- Fraud Examiners, Investigators and Analysts
- Geographers
- Human Resources Specialists
- Industrial-Organizational Psychologists
- Investment Fund Managers
- Loss Prevention Managers
- Management Analysts
- Marketing Managers
- Quality Control Analysts
- Sales Managers
- Sales Representatives of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel
- Security Management Specialists
- Stockers and Order Fillers
- Sustainability Specialists
- Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers
- Treasurers and Controllers
- Urban and Regional Planners
- Wholesale and Retail Buyers, Except Farm Products
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Advise others on business or operational matters”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.