Principal Business Consultant

Role overview

Principal Business Consultant at Cornerstone OnDemand

In This Role You Will Consulting, advisory and solution leadership Lead business requirements and gap-analysis activities for complex HCM SaaS implementations.

Responsibilities

• Develop and recommend functional strategies based on customer business outcomes, operating models, and existing workflows.
• Conduct post-go-live reviews, document lessons learned, and convert insights into repeatable delivery improvements.
• Provide solution consulting, advisory and industry best-practice guidance throughout the customer lifecycle.

Preferred qualifications and skills

• Standard Pre-Requisites Bachelor's degree in Business, Human Resources, Information Systems, Technology, or a related discipline, or equivalent relevant professional experience Hands-on experience with enterprise HCM SaaS implementation; experience with Cornerstone OnDemand solutions is strongly preferred.

Employment details

• Deep subject-matter expertise in one or more areas such as learning management, talent management, performance, succession, compensation, recruiting, skills, or talent mobility.
• Location: Hyderabad [India]

Application details

• Apply industry and product expertise to identify gaps, risks, and process pitfalls, and guide customers toward optimal solutions.

About the employer

• The Principal Business Consultant is responsible for delivering high-impact consulting, advisory and implementation services to customers while defining, improving, and driving best practices across Cornerstone OnDemand solutions.
• Delivery, governance, and customer outcomes Partner with the Cornerstone OnDemand Project Manager in defining the optimum delivery strategy and project plan.
• Extra Dose of Awesome If You Have Current certifications in relevant Cornerstone OnDemand solutions.

Additional role details

• The role provides functional and business leadership on complex engagements, supports pre-sales presentations and scoping, and works with cross functional teams, clients, and stakeholders to deliver business outcomes on time, within scope, and to high quality standards.
• Facilitate business-process, solution-design, and configuration workshops, including executive and stakeholder discussions.
• Provide functional and business leadership to customers and cross-functional delivery teams.
• Own testing and validation of business requirements and functional solutions.
• Lead complex workstreams and coordinate dependencies, decisions, risks, issues, and scope across the engagement.
• Partner with internal teams to define, deliver, and resolve post-implementation issues.
• Facilitate and lead administrator training and customer enablement.
• Meet utilization expectations and other individual and practice performance KPIs.
• Practice leadership and pre-sales Act as a subject-matter expert across relevant Cornerstone OnDemand solutions and HCM domains.
• Support pre-sales discovery, solution presentations, scoping, and effort-shaping activities.
• Recommend and lead internal initiatives that improve operational efficiency, consistency, and delivery quality.
• Mentor and guide consultants and analysts through coaching, knowledge sharing, and quality review.
• Oversee and guide implementation projects with reduced dependency on Practice Managers and Directors .
• You've Got What It Takes If You Have 8+ years of consulting, advisory experience in the HCM space, including 6+ years supporting medium- or large-scale implementation programs.
• Demonstrated experience leading complex customer-facing workstreams from discovery through validation and go-live.
• Strong business analysis, process design, gap analysis, problem solving, and solution advisory capabilities.
• Ability to communicate complex topics clearly in writing, presentations, workshops, and executive discussions.
• Ability to establish trusted-advisor relationships and confidently guide customer decisions using product and industry best practices.
• Experience managing scope, schedule, risks, issues, decisions, and cross-functional dependencies.
• Ability to operate with minimal supervision, lead premier or strategically important customers, and prevent issues proactively.
• Proven collaboration and mentoring skills, including the ability to improve the quality and timeliness of team deliverables.
• High level of organization and the ability to coordinate the work of others without direct reporting responsibility.
• Core Competencies Communication and executive presence Clear, concise, professional communication; strong writing, presentation, facilitation, and stakeholder-management skills.
• Problem solving Logical root-cause analysis, insightful questioning, evidence-based recommendations, and practical resolution of complex issues.
• Customer leadership Ability to earn customer confidence, build trust, navigate ambiguity, and maintain a strong focus on measurable customer outcomes.
• Commercial and scope awareness Ability to support discovery and scoping, protect delivery boundaries, and connect recommendations to project outcomes.
• Team and practice contribution Ability to coach others, share reusable knowledge , strengthen delivery standards, and contribute in delivery and pre-sales scenarios.
• Working knowledge of implementation methodologies, requirements documentation, solution design, testing, data validation, administrator enablement, and go-live readiness Willingness and ability to work US shifts from Hyderabad office, in accordance with business requirements.
• Willingness and ability to travel based on customer and project needs.
• Professional proficiency in English and the ability to work effectively with global customers and distributed teams.
• Proficiency with AI tools , Microsoft Office applications and professional-services automation tools such as Kantata (Mavenlink) & Asana.
• Industry certifications from TSIA, Prosci, IIBA, PMI, or a similar accredited organization.
• Experience with business transformation, change management, adoption strategy, governance, or value realization.
• Experience supporting proposals, statements of work, estimation, or solution demonstrations.
• Exposure to integrations, SSO, data migration, reporting, security roles, or enterprise application ecosystems. #LI-Onsite