THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE ROLE OF A PRODUCT MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT

How Data Management Consultants Fix Data Silos and Quality Issues

Data is a strategic asset for an organisation, but often isn't treated as such. Data usually sits within silo's within organisations and is often neglected. 90% of businesses admit that their data is frequently duplicated, incomplete, out-of-date, unorganised, or simply unusable, and flows across the organisation without much oversight. Organisations rarely have the time, governance, processes or systems in place to address these concerns, which often leads them to deal with these issues reactively. The cost? According to IBM, poor data quality costs the US economy $3.1 trillion annually.

VENTUREST | Tech Outsourcing. https://venturest.app/blog/big-data-for-smarter-decision-making

For the following reasons, a data management consultant helps provide their expertise for the following issues: 

• Non-existent interface or communication between IT (technology) and the business. 
• Data sitting in silos as departments hoard their data; R&D, marketing and ecommerce
• Lack of data management processes or companies outgrowing them
• Data governance frameworks are missing for standardised data management

What Is a Product Data Management Consultancy?

A data management consultancy is a specialised service that transforms how organisations collect, store, process, and leverage their data assets for strategic and operational aims.

As a decision maker, you may think that your organisation has sufficient data management processes in place; however, across departments, this may be a different story. There could be manual processes in place and teams chasing each other to find the relevant spreadsheets. There may even be multiple versions of the same dataset, with each department using a different one.

These approaches will lead to your team wasting time and resources that could be utilised more effectively elsewhere. Inevitably, this will impact your data quality and customer experience. Imagine you are a manufacturer who ends up selling an older version of a product which is no longer in stock. Not only would this impact returns for this particular order, but it would also affect the longer-term relationship with the retailer and the reputational impact within the industry.

Data management consultancies are architects of your data ecosystem; they adopt efficiency measures, address your data issues and build the foundation that turns your data into a competitive advantage. These consultants bridge the critical gap between business strategy, organisational processes and technical execution, ensuring your data doesn't just exist but actively drives growth, efficiency, and innovation.

Why Does Your Company Need a Data Management Consultancy?

The Hidden Costs of Poor Data Quality

Before exploring solutions, consider the price of inaction. Poor data management has long-lasting effects:

• Financial Loss: Companies waste 21% of their revenue annually on poor data quality decisions
• Competitive Disadvantage: According to the consultancy BCG, data-driven organisations can outperform their competitors and grow 30% faster 
• Regulatory breaches: GDPR fines alone exceeded €1.6 billion in 2023, often due to inadequate data governance
• Operational Paralysis: Employees spend 30% of their time searching for or validating information
• https://www.cluedin.com/cost-of-poor-quality-data
• https://www.bcg.com/publications/2023/company-data-champions-driving-resilience
• https://cottrillresearch.com/various-survey-statistics-workers-spend-too-much-time-searching-for-information/

The Strategic Reasons why you need a data management consultancy

Your organisation needs a data management consultancy if any of these scenarios sound familiar:

• Data Silos Are Stalling Growth: Different departments operate with incompatible data sets, creating contradictory reports and conflicting strategies.
• Decision-Making Moves Incredibly Slowly: Leadership waits weeks for reliable reports because data must be manually compiled and verified.
• Customer Experience Suffers: Inconsistent product data across systems leads to an increase in returns and unhappy customers.
• Compliance Keeps You Awake at Night: Regulatory requirements feel overwhelming because you can't track where sensitive data lives or how it moves. For compliance frameworks such as the digital product passport, organisations are unsure where to begin.
• Digital Transformation Stalls: Technology investments fail to deliver promised returns because the underlying data infrastructure can't support new capabilities. For example, a company procures a best-in-class search technology, which fails to provide sufficient search results due to incomplete and unstructured data. 
• Innovation Gets Suffocated: Teams can't experiment with AI, machine learning, or advanced analytics because foundational data quality issues block progress. Without the right foundations, you end up with garbage in and garbage out. 

A product data management consultancy is an invaluable service offered by experts who provide essential guidance in effectively managing product data. These consultants bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table, helping companies to not only optimise their product data management systems but also to ensure the integrity, accuracy and completeness of their product information. By working hand-in-hand with organisations, a product data management consultancy establishes frameworks, identifies and helps integrate the appropriate software, and develops custom strategies for organising and maintaining accurate product data across the organisation. 

The Key Responsibilities of a Data Management Consultant

1. Data Assessment: The Business Analyst Role

A business consultant will generally form a high-level overview of how the business is performing and what its strategic aims are. The business analyst, on the other hand, will investigate specific systems like the PIM to gain a detailed understanding of how the system is used across the organisation. They will interrogate the following:

• Data Quality Metrics: The data quality specialist, during the discovery phase, identifies where the data can be considered faithful and where the data needs to be cleansed and rectified. They will look into the accuracy, completeness, consistency, and the product lifecycle across all systems.
• Data Flow Mapping: How data and information are exchanged across departments, systems, and external partners. They will also examine product data onboarding and the interoperability between systems. 
• Risk Assessment: Vulnerabilities in data security, compliance, and business continuity
• Opportunity Identification: Underutilised product data assets that could drive new revenue streams. Imagine if the email marketing channel is receiving incomplete or inaccurate product data. 

Real Example: A billion-dollar global manufacturer faced challenges with compliance and data quality across 26 locations due to a number of disjointed legacy ERP systems and a lack of a product information management strategy. Our team of experienced consultants analysed their requirements and then implemented the Pimcore platform that unified data, automated workflows, and content management for their website and product catalogs. This system improved regulatory compliance, improved the flow of data across the organisation and improved profits as catalogs were being generated in time.

2. Strategy Development: The Data Strategist

Armed with assessment insights, the data architect will provide comprehensive data strategies aligned with business objectives. This strategic blueprint should include:

• Vision Articulation: Clear picture of what data-driven success looks like, including the company's data sources with a plan to integrate, centralise, protect and maintain these sources
• Prioritisation Framework: Which data initiatives could deliver the maximum return on investment, and in the order of importance
• Technology Roadmap: Phased approach to system upgrades, integration, and new capability development
• Resource Planning: Realistic assessment of budget, timeline, and personnel requirements
• Risk Mitigation: Contingency plans for potential obstacles and setbacks

3. Foundational Systems Development: The Data Architect & Data Quality Specialist

Data architecture is the backbone that supports all organisational data initiatives. Consultants design and implement:

• Scalable Infrastructure: Systems that grow with your business without performance degradation
• Storage Optimisation: Cost-effective solutions balancing performance, security, and accessibility. 
• Security Implementation: Establishing robust protection for sensitive information
• Data Pipeline Construction: Building automated workflows that ensure clean, consistent and validated data flows across the product lifecycle. 
• Workflow Mapping: Streamlining collaboration across teams, with the guardrails in place to ensure that the correct sign-offs are in place as data moves across systems.

4. Turning Strategy into Reality: Technical Solution Architect

The solution architect will focus on the execution details and will work hand-in-hand with a data architect. Data management consultants playing the role of a solution architect will orchestrate complex implementations, managing:

• System Integration: Connecting disparate databases, applications, and platforms into cohesive ecosystems. Integration planning from ERP supplier data portals with the PIM and ecommerce platforms. 
• Performance Optimisation: Fine-tuning systems for speed, reliability, and scalability
• Technology strategy: integrated suite of technologies vs a composable best-in-class technology such as a MACH (Modular, API-first, Composable, headless) architecture.
• Backup and Recovery:  A robust plan for disaster recovery, ensuring business continuity when systems fail. 
• Cloud Strategy: SAAS, Hybrid, multi-cloud, or on-premise solutions tailored to your security and performance needs. 

5. Data Governance: The Data Governance Consultant 

Perhaps the most critical yet overlooked responsibility—establishing governance that ensures long-term data integrity. This includes:

• Policy Development: Clear rules governing data access, usage, and modification
• Role Definition: Who owns what data and bears responsibility for data quality, accountability, user rights and so on. 
• Compliance Framework: Ensuring adherence to GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and industry-specific regulations. Ensuring data meets data classification standards such as the ETIM data model.
• Quality Standards: Measurable criteria for data accuracy, correctness and completeness.
• Change Management: Processes for handling data structure modifications

6. Training and Support: Building Internal Capability

The best consultants work themselves out of a job by transferring knowledge to their team. Comprehensive training encompasses:

• Executive Education: C-suite briefings on data strategy, ROI measurement, and competitive implications
• Technical Skill Development: Hands-on training for IT teams on new systems, tools, and processes. This will include a training plan, training material, and a train-the-trainer approach. 
• End-User Empowerment: Department-specific training ensuring all employees can effectively use new data capabilities, and for example, making sure the marketing team understands how to onboard data in a PIM rather than adding content to a CMS. 
• Ongoing Support: Post-implementation assistance, troubleshooting, and optimisation guidance
• Knowledge Documentation: Comprehensive manuals, best practices, and troubleshooting guides for sustained success

7. Analytics Insights: Transforming Data into Decisions

The ultimate goal is to have organised and reliable data which provides you with actionable intelligence to guide your business decisions. Consultants establish analytics capabilities that deliver:

• Dashboards: leadership visibility into key results
• Predictive Analytics: Forward-looking insights that anticipate market changes and operational needs
• Automated Reporting: Self-generating reports that eliminate manual compilation
• Advanced Analytics: Machine learning models that uncover hidden patterns and opportunities
• Self-Service Analytics: Empowering business users to generate insights independently

What Does a Typical Data Management Consultant Engagement Look Like

Understanding responsibilities is one thing—seeing them in action reveals the actual value. Here's how elite data management consultants spend their time:

Week 1-4: Discovery and Diagnosis

The business consultants and business analysts will play the role of organisational detectives, conducting stakeholder interviews, PIM audits, and data quality assessments. They're mapping your data lifecycle while identifying quick wins and long-term transformation opportunities.

Week 5-8: Strategy and Planning

Armed with discovery insights, the consultant will write a detailed implementation plan. They're building business cases, securing stakeholder buy-in, and designing technical architectures that align with strategic objectives. They will finalise the functional and non-functional requirements for the project.

Week 9-24: Implementation and Integration

The heavy lifting begins. The delivery team will orchestrate system implementations, data migrations, and integration projects. They're project managers, technical architects, system integrators and change management specialists working together simultaneously.

Week 24-36: Optimisation and Transfer

Fine-tuning performance while transferring knowledge to internal teams. The best consultants ensure your organisation can maintain and evolve the systems long after their engagement ends.

How Do We Choose The Right Data Management Consultant

Not all consultants deliver equal value. The following questions will help you to separate genuine experts from potential charlatans:

Business Impact Questions

• "Show me three specific examples where your data management work saved the organisation money or increased a client's revenue."
• “What’s the scope of the programme?”
• “What project management methodology will you use to run the project?”
• “Who are the people within the client’s organisation you will need access to?
• What business metrics will you use to understand the impact of the programme ”
• "How do you measure success beyond technical implementation?"

Technical Expertise Questions

• "Describe your approach to data quality monitoring and improvement."
• "How do you handle data governance in highly regulated industries?"
• "What's your methodology for managing complex data migrations?"

Industry Experience Questions

• "How many projects have you completed in our industry?"
• "What unique data challenges face companies like ours?"
• "Can you provide references from similar organisations?"

Partnership Philosophy Questions

• "How do you ensure knowledge transfer to our internal team?"
• "What ongoing support do you provide post-implementation?"
• "How do you handle scope changes and unexpected challenges?"

Vendor Questions

• “What experience do you have within our vertical / industry? Do you have any relevant case studies?”
• “Does your customer success team provide further training?”
• “Does your solution have any out-of-the-box integrations into core business systems (CRM, ERP, CMS, etc. ) we can utilise?”
• “How do you plan to transfer knowledge to the client's internal teams?”

The ROI of Professional Data Management Consulting

Investing in expert data management consulting delivers quantifiable returns across multiple dimensions:

Direct Financial Benefits

• Revenue Growth: 15-25% increase in sales through better product experiences, improved search engine optimization and reduced returns
• Cost Reduction: 20-30% decrease in operational expenses through automation and efficiency
• Risk Mitigation: Avoiding regulatory fines that can reach tens of millions and long term reputational damage

Competitive Advantages

• Decision Speed: Faster access to accurate information accelerates strategic responses
• Innovation Capability: Clean, structured and complete data enables AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics initiatives
• Customer Experience: Unified customer views enable personalized, seamless interactions
• Product Experience: a single source of truth for product data enabling competitive differentiation and improved margins

Operational Excellence

• Employee Productivity: Eliminating time spent searching for or validating information
• Process Automation: Reducing manual tasks and human error across teams
• Scalability: Data Infrastructure that grows with business needs, allowing the business to launch across regions faster

When to Engage a Data Management Consultant

Timing matters. Engage consultants during these critical inflexion points:

Pre-Digital Transformation

Before investing in new technology, ensure your data foundation can support ambitious digital initiatives. Ensure you have buy-in across the organisation and an understanding of the potential gains of implementing a cohesive data strategy.

Merger and Acquisition Activity

Integrate data systems and establish unified governance before cultural and operational integration challenges multiply.

Regulatory Change

Adapt to new compliance requirements (GDPR, CCPA, industry-specific regulations) before enforcement actions. Currently, the digital product passport initiative by the EU is driving manufacturers to reconsider their product data strategy. 

Competitive Pressure

When market dynamics demand faster, more accurate decision-making to maintain competitive positioning, retail leaders now require real-time dynamic pricing systems in order to compete in the current competitive landscape. 

Growth Scaling

Before data chaos strangles expansion opportunities or compromises customer experience.

The Future-Proof Organization: Building Sustainable Data Excellence

The most successful data management consulting engagements create lasting transformation, not temporary fixes. Look for consultants who:

Emphasize Cultural Change

Technology alone doesn't solve data problems, people do. Effective consultants embed data-driven thinking throughout your organization, making sure that your people understand the changes required and the benefits this will bring.

Plan for a Changing World

Today's solutions must accommodate tomorrow's needs. Great consultants design flexible, scalable architectures that adapt to changing requirements. Composable architecture now allows you to quickly swap services required as your needs changed. You know longer need to invest in a single monolithic system for all your technology needs. 

Transfer True Expertise

The goal isn't dependency, it's empowering your internal team to make the decisions they need to make. Hamari consultants ensure your team can maintain, optimize, and evolve systems independently.

Measure and Monitor

Establishing ongoing performance measurement will ensure continued success and identify optimization opportunities.

Hamari Data Management Services

At Hamari we have a team of highly trained data management professionals with experience across a number of verticals and specialisms. Their value has accrued by the sheer number of client engagements they have been involved in. 

With our service model we ensure that your company has the right data consultant alongside your chosen technology vendor with the appropriate experience required at every stage of the delivery required:

• Discovery, requirement gathering, technology selection, procurement and strategy
• POC design, configuration & development, implementation and integration 
• Training and education, upgrades on-going support and maintenance 

Contact Hamari for proven data management consultancy today. Your company will thank you.

Ready to transform your data from liability to competitive weapon? Discover how expert data management consulting can unlock millions in hidden value while bulletproofing your organization against costly data disasters. The conversation that could change everything starts with a simple phone call.