Data Strategy
Plenty of data strategies end up as a document nobody opens again. We start from the decisions your business makes every month, work out what evidence those decisions need, and build a plan you can start acting on immediately.
Book a discovery call
Start from the decisions you need to make, not from the data you happen to have.
How we get there
Six to eight weeks, ending with a clear order of work and the first piece already being built.
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Find the decisions that matter
Which regular choices involve real money, and what evidence is behind them today. The honest answer is often experience and instinct, which is worth knowing.
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Look at what you already have
What data exists, what people actually trust, and what the business genuinely depends on. Those three are rarely the same list.
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Put it in order
Ordered by what matters most and what makes the next thing possible, rather than by what is easiest to start.
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Get the first piece moving
The first item is underway before we finish, because a plan nobody has started tends to get reopened and argued about again.
What the work covers
Who decides what
Your business teams should decide what a term like 'active customer' means. A central team should decide how definitions are recorded and changed. Getting that the wrong way round produces rules nobody follows.
Real ownership, not a job title
A named person with a named stand-in, the authority to say no to a change, and the time for it written into their objectives. Without all three, ownership is a label.
What to build, buy, or leave alone
Often the recommendation is to leave more alone than expected. Plenty of organisations are carrying more technology than their decisions require.
A business case that survives scrutiny
Built on things you will genuinely be able to do afterwards, rather than a productivity percentage nobody will ever check, and including the costs that are easy to forget.
A plan in a sensible order
Showing what depends on what, what matters most, and what is already underway.
How you will know it worked
Agreed before the work starts, so that in six months there is an honest answer rather than an argument.
We write the decisions down
Throughout the work we keep a simple record: what was decided, who decided it, what evidence was in front of them, what they expected to happen, and when to check. It takes a few minutes per entry and saves a great deal later.
- Stops the same argument being had again in a year by someone new
- When someone leaves, the reasoning stays behind, not just the setup
- Writing down what you expect often reveals the room did not actually agree
Six to eight weeks, then you are moving
It ends with a clear order of work and the first piece already being built, rather than a document that gets filed.
Common questions
How is this different from an audit or assessment?
An assessment tells you where you stand. This ends with the first improvement already being built. If we hand you a document and leave, we have not done the job.
Will you recommend specific tools?
Where a tool is genuinely the answer, yes. We take no commission from any vendor, so nothing changes for us depending on which you choose.
What if the answer is that we should do less?
That is a common and perfectly valid outcome, and we will say so. Spending less and understanding it better is often the better result.
Also included
The parts of a strategy engagement that are easy to leave out and expensive to skip.
Data quality standards
Agreeing what accurate and consistent actually mean here, and putting checks behind those definitions.
Architecture planning
On-premises, cloud or hybrid, chosen against what you need rather than what is fashionable.
Maturity benchmarking
An honest read of where you stand against comparable organisations, including where you are further ahead than you thought.
Bringing people with you
Stakeholder engagement, training and a communication plan. A strategy nobody has been told about does not get followed.
Related services
Ready to turn complexity into your next advantage?
Bring one decision your business makes every month, and we will work backwards from it with you.
Book a discovery call