Most AI work that touches data fails for the same reason. It starts from the slide deck and ends the moment it meets the underlying systems. The numbers in the document and the numbers in the database disagree. We start with the data your business actually has, not the strategy written over it. The engagement delivers clarity on where you actually stand, an honest plan, and the right sequence to close the gaps that matter.
What we do
Data strategy work, in our practice, is the unglamorous part of AI readiness. It is the walk-through of what your business actually owns, the arguments your team has been quietly avoiding, the documentation that does not exist yet, and the rules nobody has agreed on. It is mostly conversation, with the systems open in front of you, and a consultant whose job is to hold the room until decisions stick. The educational view of the same territory lives on the data pillar page.
By the end of the engagement, you have an honest map of the data, a small number of agreed definitions for terms your business keeps fighting about, named owners for each data domain, and a sequenced plan to close the gaps that matter. The plan is yours. We do not retain it. We do not need access to your systems after the engagement closes.
- 01
Mapping your data honestly
We walk through every system that holds data anyone in the business might want to use. What is in it, who owns it, whether it agrees with the system next to it, and where the contradictions live. The unglamorous part most teams have been avoiding.
- 02
Building agreement on what counts
What 'customer' means. What 'active' means. What 'revenue' means. The arguments your teams have been quietly avoiding until AI forces them to settle, written down, agreed, and applied consistently across the systems that need them.
- 03
Designing governance that holds up
Who owns each data domain. Who can change which fields. Who is accountable when the data is wrong. Documented, enforceable, and owned by named individuals rather than by 'the data team' or 'IT'.
- 04
Sequencing the fix
Most data does not need to be perfect everywhere. It needs to be good enough in the right places, in the right order, for the AI use cases that actually matter. The plan is the sequence, and the sequence respects the budget.
- 05
Connecting what needs connecting
Some engagements extend into integration work, making sure the systems that need to talk to each other can. This is sometimes the right work and sometimes the wrong work for the same business at different points. We say which when we see the estate.
How an engagement works
We do not sell standard packages. Every engagement is scoped in the discovery call to what the business actually needs. Sometimes that is a two-day diagnostic that goes to your leadership team. Sometimes it is months of embedded work with your data and operations teams. Sometimes it is a structured plan we hand over for your team to deliver internally. The shape of the engagement is a conversation, not a menu. The same bespoke principle applies to our wider transformation engagement.
A discovery call is thirty minutes. We listen, ask what you have already tried, and tell you honestly whether we think we can help. There is no pitch deck. If we are not the right people for what your business needs, we say so. Most calls end with a clear next step. Some end with a referral elsewhere, because the work the business needs is not what we do.
If we both agree there is an engagement worth scoping, we write a proposal. One page, on email, with the work, the time, the price, and what we will and will not commit to. You decide whether to proceed. There is no retainer-by-default. If the engagement should continue beyond the agreed scope, we write another proposal.
Our network of specialist partners
Some engagements need specialist data delivery: deep integration work, infrastructure migration, custom pipeline build. We do not deliver that work ourselves. We have a small network of specialist partners we trust for it, and we bring them in when an engagement calls for it. Most engagements do not need them. Where data work overlaps with process redesign, the same principle applies, and you can read more about how those two pieces fit together on the process pillar page.
We tell you which yours needs in the discovery call, not after the contract. You will not be passed to a sub-contractor without knowing who, why, or what they cost. If specialist work is needed, that work has its own scoped proposal, its own price, and its own named lead. The relationship stays with us.
What we don't do
We don't publish client work
The businesses we work with are showing us the parts of their operation that do not work yet. They engage us because we keep that confidential. Trust is not the kind of thing you can market your way around. You either hold it, or you do not. We have no case studies on this site. By design, not by absence.
We don't sell retainers
Engagements end when the work is done. If ongoing partnership is what you actually need, we write a scoped agreement for it with a defined end date and a clear renewal decision. We will not default you into a monthly fee for as long as you remain a customer.
We don't pitch AI tools we don't believe in
The audit assesses your existing stack. Recommendations are based on what your business actually needs, not on vendor relationships we have been incentivised to maintain. If a tool you already own does the job, we say so. If a tool you have been pitched does not, we say that too.
How this fits with the audit
Most engagements start after a business has taken the audit. The free seven-minute version, the £97 Full Report, or the £497 Deep Dive. By the time we meet, the buyer knows where the gaps are. The discovery call is then a scoping conversation, not a discovery conversation. That is the route we recommend.
Not every engagement starts there. Some buyers come directly to a discovery call because they already know where the work is. Either route works. The free audit is the cheaper way to find out whether the conversation is worth having. The Deep Dive is the deeper way to walk into the call already aligned on the work.