Understanding the Spectrum of Career Change

Career change is not binary — you are not choosing between "stay exactly where you are" and "start over in a completely new field." Between these extremes lies a rich spectrum of moves, and the lateral move is one of the most underutilised and effective strategies in this spectrum.

A lateral career move involves changing one dimension of your career (your industry, or your function) while keeping the other relatively constant. The result is a career change that:

  • Leverages your existing expertise rather than abandoning it
  • Reduces the credential gap and entry barriers
  • Minimises the financial impact during transition
  • Creates more compelling narratives for hiring managers

This is not the right approach for everyone — if you genuinely need a fundamental shift in both what you do and where you do it, a lateral move will feel like half-measures. But for many professionals who are career-changing, a well-designed lateral move is the clearest and fastest path to meaningful change.

Two Types of Lateral Move

Type 1: Same Function, Different Industry

You continue doing what you are functionally skilled at — finance, HR, marketing, operations, legal, supply chain — but apply it in a new industry context.

Examples:

  • A procurement manager at an auto manufacturer moving to procurement at a pharmaceutical company
  • An HR business partner at a bank moving to HR at a startup
  • A marketing manager at an FMCG company moving to marketing at an EdTech company
  • A supply chain professional at a consumer goods company moving to supply chain at an e-commerce company

The advantage: your functional skills are directly transferable, your seniority level is maintained, and you carry genuine expertise into the new role. The transition is less about learning a new job and more about learning a new industry context.

When this works best: When you are dissatisfied with your current industry — its culture, trajectory, ethical implications, or lack of dynamism — but genuinely enjoy your functional work. Finance professionals who are frustrated with BFSI bureaucracy but love financial analysis; marketing professionals who find their current industry boring but enjoy the craft of marketing.

Type 2: Different Function, Same Industry

You pivot to a new functional role while staying within the industry you know deeply.

Examples:

  • A pharma sales professional moving into pharma product management
  • An IT operations professional moving into IT pre-sales/solution consulting
  • A bank relationship manager moving into bank product development
  • A logistics operations manager moving into supply chain consulting

The advantage: your industry knowledge is your credential for the new function. The hiring manager does not need to teach you the industry — they need to develop your functional skills in the new role. This is a smaller gap for them to bridge, and they often will.

When this works best: When you are engaged by your industry but frustrated with your current function. When the work is interesting but your specific role within it is not fulfilling.

The "Diagonal Move": Changing Both Partially

A diagonal move changes both function and industry, but only modestly along each dimension. Rather than a comprehensive career overhaul, it is a step in a new direction that builds new credentials while leveraging existing ones.

Example: An IT recruiter (function: HR; industry: IT) who moves to a healthcare company as an HR business partner. The function shifts from specialist recruiting to generalist HRBP, and the industry shifts from tech to healthcare — but neither change is so dramatic that existing skills become irrelevant.

Diagonal moves are particularly useful for professionals who need to build credentials in two new directions and can afford the slightly slower timeline this creates.

Mapping Your Transferable Skills

The foundation of any lateral move strategy is a clear-eyed skills audit. What can you do that translates across different contexts?

Functional skills are the most obvious transferable skills — financial analysis, project management, data analysis, digital marketing, sales, procurement, legal drafting. These transfer across industries more readily than most professionals realise.

Industry knowledge transfers more than professionals typically credit. Understanding how pharmaceutical companies work — their regulatory environment, commercial model, distribution challenges, and stakeholder dynamics — is valuable in adjacent industries (medical devices, hospital management, healthcare technology) and to consulting firms that serve healthcare clients.

Domain expertise is a powerful but often underestimated asset in lateral moves. A professional who has spent 8 years in automotive manufacturing knows supply chain challenges, quality management systems, vendor management, and production economics in extraordinary depth. This expertise is a competitive advantage when moving into consulting, into a related industry (aerospace, heavy engineering, EV manufacturing), or into a functional specialisation (automotive product management at a tech company like Ola Electric).

Professional network is an often-invisible transferable asset. Your network — former colleagues, clients, vendors, industry contacts — follows you into your new role and can create value immediately.

Success Stories of Lateral Moves in India

Pharma Sales to Pharma Product Management. This is one of India's most common and successful lateral moves. Pharma companies have large field sales forces and increasingly sophisticated product management functions. Sales professionals who understand how drugs are prescribed, what drives doctors' decisions, and what competitive dynamics look like on the ground bring invaluable perspective to product teams. Companies like Sun Pharma, Cipla, Dr. Reddy's, and Abbott actively promote this move.

IT Recruiter to HR Business Partner. Many IT companies promote strong recruiters into HRBP roles when they demonstrate people skills, business acumen, and interest in broader HR work. The move is natural within tech companies — the HRBP candidate understands the technical roles they are supporting, which makes them significantly more effective than an HRBP who came from a non-tech background.

Operations Manager to Supply Chain Consultant. Operations professionals with 8-12 years of experience in manufacturing, logistics, or distribution often transition into supply chain consulting at Big 4 firms or boutique consultancies. They bring operational credibility that consultants who came straight from MBA programmes lack. Deloitte, KPMG, and specialised supply chain consultancies like Bristlecone and Miebach actively hire these profiles.

BFSI Relationship Manager to FinTech Business Development. The knowledge of how large corporate clients make financial decisions, which products they need, and who their decision-makers are is extremely valuable for FinTech companies selling payment or lending solutions to enterprises. Many RM-to-FinTech-BD transitions have been remarkably successful in India's current market.

Corporate Lawyer to Compliance Specialist. Lawyers who move in-house have been making this lateral function change for decades. More recently, the reverse path — compliance specialists who develop enough legal depth to advise on regulatory strategy — has opened up in India's FinTech and healthcare sectors.

Companies in India Most Open to Lateral Moves

Conglomerates with diverse business portfolios. Tata Group (operating across steel, IT, consumer goods, hospitality, automotive, and financial services), Mahindra Group (auto, agri, aerospace, IT), and Godrej Group (FMCG, real estate, industrials) create natural environments for function-preserving industry moves within the same parent group. Many of their senior professionals have built careers that span multiple group companies.

Companies undergoing digital transformation. Traditional companies that are building digital capabilities — HDFC Bank's digital product team, Marico's D2C division, Asian Paints' digital supply chain team — actively need professionals who combine functional expertise with digital fluency.

Consulting firms. The Big 4 (Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PwC) and strategy firms (McKinsey, BCG, Bain) are natural landing spots for lateral career changers because their model is precisely to deploy domain expertise across client engagements.

Healthcare and pharmaceutical companies. Healthcare in India is growing rapidly and needs talent from adjacent sectors — FMCG marketing professionals for consumer health brands, finance professionals for hospital chains, tech professionals for health-tech companies.

How to Position a Lateral Move

The key to a successful lateral move interview is leading with value, not transition narrative.

Instead of: "I'm looking to move from FMCG to EdTech because I find education more meaningful."

Say: "I'm a brand manager with 6 years of experience building consumer brands at scale. I've been studying the EdTech category closely and I see significant opportunities to apply consumer brand-building discipline in a space that is currently underdeveloped in this capability. Here's specifically how my experience is relevant to what you are trying to build."

The hiring manager's primary question is always: "Why is this person a better hire than someone with direct experience in this role?" Your answer to that question — the specific value your lateral background brings — is the crux of your entire pitch.

The general principle: your salary should not decrease in a lateral move unless you are making a significant function change that genuinely requires you to rebuild from a more junior level.

Function-preserving, industry-switching lateral moves should command your current salary plus a 15-25% increase. You are bringing expertise; you deserve to be compensated accordingly.

Function-changing lateral moves within the same industry may involve a temporary 10-20% salary adjustment if you are genuinely at a junior level in the new function. However, the floor should be higher than a genuine entry-level hire, because your industry knowledge and professional maturity add value even in the new function.

Research market rates specifically for your target role using AmbitionBox, Glassdoor India, and LinkedIn Salary Insights before any negotiation. Know the range, anchor high within it, and be prepared to justify your ask with specific evidence.

How Dheya Supports Lateral Career Moves

Dheya's career counsellors work with professionals who are asking: "Do I need a complete career change, or is a strategic lateral move the better path?" This is a genuinely important question that deserves careful analysis.

Our RAPD assessments identify which elements of your current work you want to preserve and which you want to change — and our counsellors map that to the lateral move strategies most likely to succeed for your specific background in India's current market.

Visit dheya.com to speak with a counsellor and identify your optimal career change strategy — whether that is lateral, comprehensive, or somewhere in between.