Every few months I write a version of this note for a prospective client. It usually starts with "what does Databuzz actually do", moves through "how are you different", and ends with "what are you not". This is the public version. It is longer than a sales page and shorter than a manifesto.
The gap we set out to fill
When we started, there were three kinds of firm a mid-market client could call. The large strategy houses, who would write a good strategy and hand it to an implementation partner who had not written it. The large implementation firms, who would build to a strategy they had not written. And the small technical shops, who would ship good engineering but had no authority to challenge a bad strategy.
The pattern we repeatedly saw: clients buying strategy and build from different firms and ending up with two halves that did not fit. A strategy that was unbuildable at the organisation's budget; a build that delivered to a strategy that was already out of date. The cost of translation — between firms, between methods, between personalities — was most of the cost of the programme.
Databuzz was founded on a specific bet: that a single firm that could both think and ship — senior consultants who had written strategy and written code, with a clear practice discipline — would outperform the split model for mid-market organisations. Four years in, the bet has paid out.
What we are
- A senior-led data and AI consultancy for UK mid-market and public sector
- Forty-one people — more senior than junior, by design
- Deep in specialty insurance, housing, city councils, accountancy, and manufacturing
- Equipped to ship: strategy, platforms, AI systems, governance, and — when it is needed — firmware and embedded work
- Willing to say no, often, to engagements we do not think will succeed
What we are not
- We are not a body-shop. We do not ship contractors; we ship teams with named people and defined outcomes.
- We are not a reseller. We take no fees from platform vendors or AI providers. Our recommendations are not distorted by channel economics.
- We are not a volume firm. We are deliberately small. We will not scale to 400 people; the economics of that require the same programme sold to different clients, and we do not believe in that model.
- We are not a marketing firm dressed as a consultancy. Our work is measurable and our outcomes are defensible. If an engagement cannot pass that test, we decline it.
The things we have learned the hard way
1. Delivery discipline beats brand discipline
Our early instinct was to invest heavily in brand. The best marketing turned out to be clients referring us to peers on the basis of shipped outcomes. We still invest in writing (you are reading it); we do not invest in conferences. Our website is understated because our practice is loud enough without it.
2. Senior is not a title, it is a daily practice
We ran the experiment. Juniors led by seniors at a distance underperform seniors in the room. Our current practice: the senior consultant is present at the working level, not just at the steering committee. This is more expensive per hour and less expensive per programme.
3. Saying no is a business skill
We have declined about a quarter of the engagements that have reached a proposal stage. Some because the timing was wrong. Some because the sponsor had not aligned the organisation. Some because the proposed AI use case was not defensible. The engagements we declined that later went ahead with another firm have, in most cases, gone poorly. The discipline of declining is the discipline of being worth the money on the ones we accept.
4. Mid-market does not need enterprise patterns — it needs its own patterns
Half of our published work is about this. Right-sized governance. Pragmatic MDM. Affordable FinOps. Evaluation harnesses that fit a small team. These are not watered-down enterprise patterns; they are different patterns. The firms that try to sell mid-market a watered-down enterprise playbook are slowly losing ground, in our observation, and we are glad about it.
What we are determined not to become
Every small consultancy faces the growth trap. The offers come: scale, sell, franchise, acquire, be acquired. Each is tempting; each would compromise what we have built. We will decline them as a rule and evaluate specific cases.
We will not grow beyond the scale at which the founders know every engagement and every consultant by name. That is probably 80 people. It is certainly not 400. At some scale, the practice and the sales force fight; we would rather remain small and continue to win the practice argument.
Our customers are, overwhelmingly, repeat. This is the metric we care about most. Referral is the next. Awards are decoration and we will decline the ones that ask for a submission fee.
If you have read this far
We would like to work with you. If the description above fits your organisation — mid-market, serious about data, allergic to slideware, expecting senior people on site — we are the firm. If you want a large brand, a large team, and slow delivery at rate-card, we are not the firm.
Either way, thank you for reading.