Data consulting: strategy, architecture, and a roadmap you can act on
Most data problems are strategy problems before they are technology problems. Veratas data consulting sets the direction: a current-state assessment, a target architecture, a governance operating model, and a prioritised, costed roadmap aligned to the outcomes your business actually needs.
Why data investment stalls
The common failure is not a lack of tools. It is a lack of direction the business agrees on.
Organisations rarely lack data technology. They have a warehouse, several reporting tools, pipelines built at different times by different people, and a backlog of dashboard requests. What they lack is a shared answer to a harder set of questions: which data capability actually moves the business, in what order should it be built, who owns data quality, and how is success measured. Without that, investment goes into whatever was asked for most loudly, and two years later the same numbers still do not reconcile.
Consulting that ends in a slide deck does not fix this. What changes the outcome is a small set of concrete deliverables a business can fund and execute against: an honest assessment of where the estate is today, a target architecture that names the platforms and patterns, a governance model that assigns ownership, and a roadmap that sequences the work with cost and value attached to each step. Veratas data consulting is built to produce exactly those artefacts, fast, and grounded in what we know can be delivered.
Data strategy, assessed, from $6,000
A fixed-scope review of your data estate and a prioritised roadmap, before you build. You see exactly what the price covers, and a fair quote for anything more.
Fixed fee from $6,000 | 2 to 3 weeks | Price shown up front
A prioritised data roadmap
We assess where you are and hand you a clear plan to act on.
- Current-state review of your data and tooling
- Target data architecture recommendation
- Prioritised roadmap with quick wins
- Data quality and governance gap analysis
- Platform and cost recommendations
- Findings readout with recommendations
Any platform or licence costs are billed separately. The $6,000 covers the assessment services.
What is in the $6,000, and what we quote separately
The implementation is scoped from the roadmap and quoted before you commit.
| In your $6,000 | Beyond the assessment, quoted at a fair rate |
|---|---|
| Current-state and architecture review | The platform build itself |
| Prioritised roadmap | Pipelines, warehouse, and reports |
| Quick-win recommendations | Migrations and integrations |
| Governance gap analysis | Ongoing data operations |
| Findings readout | A centre of excellence |
You pay $6,000 for the assessment. The implementation is scoped from the roadmap and quoted transparently, always shown before you decide.
Data consulting that ends in a plan
Our consulting engagements are short, fixed-scope, and deliverable-driven. You finish with documents you can execute against.
Data strategy
A clear data strategy linking business objectives to data capability: what to build, in what order, and the value each step is expected to deliver, written so executives and IT both recognise it.
Current-state assessment
An honest review of the existing estate across ingestion, storage, modelling, reporting, and tooling, with the specific points where it costs the business time, trust, or money.
Target data architecture
A target architecture across ingestion, storage, modelling, and consumption, typically on Microsoft Fabric, Azure, and Power BI, named concretely enough to estimate and build.
Data governance operating model
An operating model for data ownership, quality, cataloguing, and access, using Microsoft Purview where it fits, so trust in data is designed in rather than hoped for.
Maturity assessment
A maturity baseline across data capability, governance, and skills, giving an objective starting point and a measurable way to track progress.
Prioritised roadmap and business case
A sequenced, costed roadmap with effort, dependencies, and a business case per initiative, the artefact that gets data investment approved.
A focused consulting engagement
Data consulting runs as a defined sprint, typically four to eight weeks, not an open-ended retainer.
Discover
Structured interviews across business and IT stakeholders, plus a review of current data systems, reporting, pipelines, and the pain points people raise. We separate symptoms from root causes early.
Assess
A current-state architecture assessment, a data quality and governance review, and a maturity baseline scored across capability, governance, and skills, so progress can be measured later.
Design
A target data architecture and a governance operating model, with capability gaps mapped to concrete options and the trade-offs of each made explicit.
Prioritise
A sequenced roadmap with effort, indicative cost, dependencies, and expected business value per initiative, so the first thing built is the thing that matters most.
Hand over
A working session that aligns business and IT stakeholders on the roadmap, resolves disagreements in the room, and agrees the first delivery step.
Why a governance model is part of the strategy, not an add-on
Architecture decides where data lives. Governance decides whether anyone trusts it.
A target architecture answers where data is ingested, stored, modelled, and consumed. It does not, by itself, answer who is accountable when a number is wrong, how a new data source is approved, what quality means for a given dataset, or how someone finds and gets access to data they need. Those are governance questions, and an estate that ignores them ends up with technically sound infrastructure that the business still does not trust, because no one owns the answers.
So our consulting treats governance as part of the strategy. We define a practical operating model: data ownership and stewardship roles, quality rules and how they are monitored, a cataloguing approach, often using Microsoft Purview, so data is discoverable with its lineage and sensitivity visible, and an access model. We deliberately size this to the organisation. A mid-sized company does not need the governance apparatus of a bank, and a model nobody can sustain is worse than a lighter one that holds. The aim is trust that is designed in and maintainable, not a policy document that is filed and forgotten.
Why clients choose Veratas for data consulting
We are a delivery firm, not a slide factory. Our consulting is grounded in what we can actually build.
Advice we can deliver
Our recommendations come from teams that build data platforms every week. We do not propose architectures we have never implemented or cannot estimate honestly.
Vendor-honest
We recommend the smallest, simplest capability that meets the need, not the largest platform, and we will tell you when an existing tool is fine where it is.
Fixed-scope and fast
Defined deliverables in four to eight weeks, so you get clear direction quickly and at a known, agreed cost rather than an open-ended retainer.
Microsoft and data depth
Consulting backed by a team that delivers Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Azure data services, and enterprise data platforms day to day.
Yours to execute
The roadmap and the deliverables are yours. You can run them with us, another partner, or an in-house team. The advice stands on its own either way.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Quick answers to questions you may have. Can't find what you're looking for? Check out our full documentation.
Get a data roadmap you can act on
A short, fixed-scope consulting engagement gives you a clear target architecture, a governance model, and a prioritised plan. Start with a conversation about where you are today.