For years, a formal data strategy was treated as something only large enterprises could justify – a line item for organisations with chief data officers and seven-figure analytics budgets. That assumption is quietly collapsing. Across 2025 and into 2026, mid-market firms have begun funding data strategy initiatives not as prestige projects, but in response to a very practical problem: they are drowning in data they cannot actually use.

From we have dashboards to we cannot trust them

Most mid-sized companies are not short of data. They run a CRM, an ERP, a finance system, several marketing platforms, and a sprawl of spreadsheets – each holding a slightly different version of the truth. The result is familiar to anyone who has…