Data Strategy Consulting

You Bought the Stack. Adoption Is Low. The Board Is Starting to Notice.

Most mid-market data programs fail on the decision made eighteen months earlier. The platform was wrong for the workloads. The priorities were set without a clear use case. The operating model outgrew the team. We assess where your data maturity actually sits, what’s worth building next, and whether you need a platform, a partner, or a plan before another dollar gets committed.
  • kamedis

  • skandium

  • amg

  • TrueSpot

  • lumesca

  • mash-direct

Where Data Programs Actually Break Down

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You bought Snowflake and Power BI eighteen months ago. Adoption is under 20%. Nobody remembers the business case that justified the spend.
01
The board asked about AI readiness at the last meeting. You said “we’re on it.” You weren’t.
02
Every department has its own dashboard initiative. None of them connect to a P&L outcome you can defend.
03
You’ve been pitched three data platforms this quarter. You can’t tell which one is right for you, and neither can the vendors honestly.
04
You need senior data thinking. You can’t justify a full-time CDO. A pure staff-augmentation partner won’t give you the strategy piece.
05

Where Are You Starting From

We’ve bought data tools but adoption is low and we can’t explain the ROI
Data Maturity Assessment
Different teams report different numbers for the same thing
Metrics & KPI Alignment
Board or investors are asking about data or AI readiness — we need an honest answer
AI Readiness Review
About to spend a large budget on a data platform and don’t know what to buy
Platform & Vendor Selection
We have data but no priorities — what should we build first?
Use-Case Discovery & Prioritisation
Deciding between in-house data team, fractional CDO, or outside partner
Operating Model Design
Pre-IPO or pre-acquisition and need to show data maturity to diligence teams
Data Maturity Assessment
Multiple departments want their own dashboards and we need a plan first
Data Strategy Roadmap
What can I help with ?

    What Changes After We Engage

    Six scenario-specific outcomes — buyer pictures the exact moment.

    The board asks about AI readiness and you have an honest answer

    The next board meeting comes up. You present a one-page maturity chart showing where you sit on DCAM or DAMA, what's in flight, and what's realistic in the next twelve months. Nobody asks a follow-up you weren't expecting.

    Platform decisions get made with a spreadsheet, not a vendor pitch

    You're weighing Snowflake versus Databricks. You sit down with a scored comparison tied to your actual workloads, your team skills, and your five-year cost projection. The decision takes a week, not a quarter.

    Every team agrees on what "active user" means

    Marketing and product both pull MAU for the weekly review. The number matches. The review moves straight into what to do about it, not what the number should be.

    Spend is justified in a language the CFO accepts

    The CFO asks what last quarter's data spend delivered. You walk through three use cases — revenue impact, cost saved, risk avoided — with numbers the finance team already verified.

    You know what to hire and what to partner out

    A headhunter sends three CDO CVs. You know whether you need one, what the job description should actually say, and which parts of the work stay with a partner. Hiring stops being a guess.

    New initiatives start with a use case, not a tool

    A department head says "we should do AI." You ask what decision they're trying to improve. The conversation either goes somewhere real or stops at the right place, on Friday, not four months later.

    How We Engage

    1

    Strategic discovery and honest maturity scoring
    We run executive interviews, review your current stack, sample live dashboards and reports, and score your data maturity against DCAM or DAMA-DMBOK — whichever framework fits your sector better — in the first two to three weeks.

    2

    Strategy document and phased roadmap
    You get a written strategy: maturity assessment, use-case prioritisation matrix, platform recommendation when you asked for one, operating model for the team, and a phased roadmap tied to business milestones rather than technology releases.

    3

    Quarterly review and adjustment
    We meet quarterly to review progress against the roadmap, adjust priorities based on what actually happened, and act as the outside perspective your internal team doesn’t have — on retainer if you want it, ad-hoc if you don’t.

    Every Quarter You Delay the Strategy Conversation, You Lock In More Spend on Tools You Won't Use

    Book a strategy call. We’ll look at what you’ve bought, what you’re running, and come back with a maturity read and a sequenced roadmap before the next purchase gets signed.
    Round Shape

    Tools We Work With

    Maturity Frameworks
    Reference Architectures (when platform selection is in scope)
    Strategy Artefacts We Deliver
    Vendor Selection
    Measurement and FinOps
    Operating Model

    What Clients Say About Working With Exillar

    Excellent work as always by Umair and team. Umair and team continue to provide excellent work product. Highly recommend, responsive and attention to detail. Umair + Exillar team continue to impress and innovate as business needs evolve

    D&K

    D&K | United States

    Thanks for the project. If you are an Executive, you need a PowerBI dashboard. Great working with the team. Many ongoing projects with Umair. Great person to work with.

    Growloup

    Royal Stone | Canada

    These guys are true professionals, they helped me improve the idea of ​​the work I wanted to develop, very kind and prepared. We will definitely do more work together. second work and I’m very statisfied

    willybesmart

    Willybesmart | United States

    The guys were great to work with, very fast to reply and have a deep understanding of PowerBI. This become a learning experience for me as they shared best practices for PowerBI.

    Darcy

    Darcy | United Kingdom

    Thanks for the exceptional work!

    Hans

    Industry MC | United States

    It was a great experience.

    Miguel

    Truespot | United States

    Umair handled my problem timely and efficiently. He is easy to collaborate with and I will be using him again.

    Travis

    United States

    Super good explanation, patience and a good sense of indagatory about the data, sources, etc. The solutions suggested were very safisfactory.

    Raul Rodriguez/F&K

    Chile

    It is always a pleasure to work with Umair and count on his skills to assist us. I highly recommend him. He has excellent communication skills, which makes my life much easier when conveying out needs to a plan, and executing it.

    Alex

    Austria

    Honestly, this has been an outstanding experience from start to finish.The team went far beyond my expectations — not only did they understand a very complex real-world operation, but they were also able to translate it into a functional and well-structured system.

    Latamsa

    Folding Production Control System | Mexico

    Working with Exillar has been amazing. Bhavisha has has gone above and beyond to get us what we need. Very pleased. ~Sherwin

    Loudermilk Homes

    Website development | USA

    It is always a pleasure to work with Umair and his team. Rock start service!

    Alex

    United Kingdom

    Industries We've Worked In

    Retail & E-Commerce
    Healthcare
    Finance & Banking
    Real Estate & Construction
    IoT & Technology
    Manufacturing & Industrial

    Retail & E-Commerce

    Customer analytics, inventory forecasting, and analytics engines that reduce churn and increase basket size.

    Healthcare

    Patient data platforms, clinical reporting, and HIPAA-compliant analytics environments for providers and health-tech.

    Finance & Banking

    Real-time transaction analytics, fraud detection, regulatory reporting, and risk dashboards.

    Real Estate & Construction

    Project data consolidation, budget tracking dashboards, and supply chain analytics across multi-site operations.

    IoT & Technology

    High-volume device data ingestion, stream processing, and analytics platforms for connected product companies.

    Manufacturing & Industrial

    Operational analytics, quality control monitoring, and supply chain visibility platforms.

    Got Questions?

    Will you try to sell us a specific platform?
    No. Platform recommendations come out of the assessment, not the sales conversation. We’re Microsoft and Snowflake partners, which we disclose up front — that means we’re certified on those stacks, not that we recommend them by default. If Databricks or BigQuery is the right answer for your workloads, that’s what the report says.
    No. Strategy engagements are often most useful before infrastructure decisions — that’s when a wrong choice costs the most. If you already have a stack, we assess it honestly. If you don’t, we help you decide what to build. Either way, the engagement starts where you are.
    A written strategy document (usually 25–40 pages), a maturity assessment against DCAM or DAMA, a prioritised use-case matrix, a platform recommendation if in scope, an operating model, and a phased roadmap. Everything presentable to a board, not a slide deck that dies in a folder.
    Yes — and we prefer to. A good strategy engagement includes knowledge transfer to your internal team from day one. We’re not trying to replace anyone. We’re giving your Head of Data or CTO the external perspective and frameworks they can’t easily generate from inside.