Data Strategy Consultant

Executive Summary

We are a £300m turnover group operating across the UK & Ireland in a mature, competitive market. With ambitious growth plans through M&A and an urgent need to implement a CRM and BI platform, we are seeking an Interim Data Strategy Consultant to deliver clarity, direction, and a practical data roadmap. This short-term engagement will assess our current data landscape, identify opportunities, and produce a budget-aligned 12-18-month plan covering priorities, governance, and resourcing - enabling us to lay the right foundations for value creation across finance, sales, supply chain, logistics, and customer data.

Current Position

• We are a £300m turnover group of companies operating across the UK & Ireland in a mature and competitive market. Our business is acquisitive, with a plan to expand via M&A.
  
  
• Our main ERP system is the AS400 (IBM), which is developed by our in-house JBA Developers. There is no scope to change this system, and we are currently running a project to convert the language from RGB to C#. One of our subsidiaries is on a legacy NetSuite operating system and will be migrated to the AS400 early 2026.
  
  
• We operate many 3rd party systems and software packages, which are fed by CSV extracts from the AS400 system. Many of these systems report similar information; however manual intervention is required to achieve a single source of truth. In addition, the AS400 sends many manual CSV extracts to departments each day to use in siloed excel reporting.
  
  
• Selection of 3rd party software is not formalised and largely left to the department to source and approve.
  
  
• We have been attempting to clean and improve our data over the last 18 months, and have recently set up a Data Committee to ensure we have more control over group data; however this is in its infancy, and no formal framework is in place.
  
  Short-term Needs
  
  
• We have a pressing need to introduce both a CRM system and Business Intelligence platform before the end of the year. Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM has been identified by a member of the Board as a preferred option. PowerBI has been identified by the FP&A team as a preferred option following a period of testing.
  
  Requirement
  
  
• We want to get more value from finance, sales, supply chain, logistics, and customer data, but the right foundations need to be in place first.
  
  
• The initial requirement is for an independent data strategy consultant to come in to
  
  Assess the current data landscape.
  Identify gaps and opportunities.
  Advise on the right architecture and approach.
  Produce a 12-18-month budget-aligned roadmap covering priorities, governance, and resourcing.
  This is not a build project at this stage, the focus is clarity, direction, and a practical plan we can commit to.
  
  Consultant Profile
  
  Title: Interim Data Strategy Consultant
  Core skills:
  
  Proven experience delivering short-term discovery and roadmap engagements.
  Strong stakeholder management, ability to engage with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, advising at Board/Executive level.
  Experience in legacy-modern integration.
  Understanding of modern data platforms (Microsoft stack preferred) and governance best practise.
  
  Deliverables:
  
  Current state assessment and system/data flow map.
  Recommendations for architecture, tooling, governance, and people. To be independent and product agnostic.
  Assessment of current internal capability (finance, IT, data governance, analytics) against future needs, with recommendations on where to build in-house skills vs. where to outsource or hire.
  Clear, costed, budget-conscious roadmap with priorities and quick wins.
  
  Contract
  
  Short-term - length to be determined by Scope
  On-site (hybrid) expected, therefore local candidates preferred.
  Start date - immediate