What would it take to answer every question our leadership asks?

It fits a company of roughly 11 to 200 people where analysts, operations leads, finance or an IT manager read the numbers and nobody's job is producing them. You run a stack of software tools (point of sale, payroll, accounting, ads, a CRM, e-commerce, support) plus spreadsheets between them. The numbers disagree, and leadership has stopped asking some questions because the answer takes days of exports.

It is probably not for you if:

• You already have a data engineer or analytics engineer on staff. They can usually draw this map themselves.
• The whole business runs in one system and that system's own reports already answer your questions.
• One dashboard needs fixing and the rest is fine.

If you are weighing a hire, the usual alternative to us is a data engineer at $100k to $150k a year. The Blueprint is the plan that hire, or another firm, would build from. Our hire-versus-firm guide walks through the cost and the trade-offs.

The Blueprint runs in three parts, and each one ends in something you can read.

1. Survey. We inventory every system: who owns it, what it holds, and how data gets out of it. Data gets out in one of three ways: an API (a documented way for software to read the data automatically), a manual export, or no way at all. Spreadsheets count as systems. The output is a systems map.
2. Map. We sort leadership's questions into the ones a single system answers alone and the ones that need several systems joined. The output is a question matrix.
3. Blueprint. We write down what the platform would take to answer every question: connectors that pull data from each system, a warehouse (a database built for reporting) in your own cloud account, tested models (the business rules written as code, with checks that fail loudly), a semantic layer (each metric defined once), reporting, and monitoring. It is sized small, medium or large and split into phases. The output is the blueprint and phased plan.

What a systems map looks like

This is an illustrative figure for a fictional 85-person distributor with 4 branches and 8 systems. It is not a client. Five systems have an API, two can only be exported by hand, and one has no way out at all.

The last row is the usual surprise. A spreadsheet on one person's laptop can be the missing piece behind the question leadership cares about most.

You get three documents, and each one stands alone.

• Systems map. Every system with its owner, who uses it, what it holds, how data gets out, and any access or license notes.
• Question matrix. Your leadership's questions against the systems that hold the answers, marked alone or joined, and ranked with leadership by value and difficulty.
• Blueprint and phased plan. The architecture source by source, sized small, medium or large, in phases that each end in named questions that can now be answered.

The blueprint covers five things:

• Sources. The connector for each system, including the ones with no API.
• Warehouse. You own the cloud account, the code and the data.
• Models. Each metric is defined once, so "true profit" means the same thing in every report.
• Reporting. Rebuilt in a tool such as Power BI, matched to today's numbers first.
• Monitoring. Freshness checks, with alerts to email or Slack when something stops arriving.

All three documents are yours to keep whoever builds.

Here is the question matrix from the same fictional distributor. This is illustrative, not a client.

The questions one tool answers are usually already answered inside it. The ones leadership cares about most cross three systems or more. In this example, 2 of the 6 questions are answerable today, and once the platform is built all 6 are.

What we need from you. A short kickoff with the owner or COO and whoever runs finance and operations. Admin or read-only access to each tool, or screenshots of settings and export screens where access is hard to grant. A plain list of the questions you cannot answer today. We read, and we never write to your systems.

Who does what. We run the survey, the map and the blueprint. Your team answers questions and reviews drafts. You review the systems map and the question matrix before the blueprint is written, and you sign off the blueprint.

What it costs. Fixed scope, fixed fee, quoted after scoping. It is a small engagement, sized before anything is committed to a build.

Where it leads. Blueprint, then platform build, then run. The build scope comes from the blueprint, phase by phase, matched to today's numbers first. Once discovery is done, a working platform takes 14 to 21 days, and one platform went from first commit to documented handover in 17 days, measured from git history. After launch, one owner stays accountable. What is Wide Open Tech? has more on how we work.

Send us the tools you run and the questions you cannot answer today. On the first call we will tell you whether a Blueprint is worth doing. If your worry is whether the ad numbers can be trusted, the other first step is Are the conversions your ad platforms claim the sales you actually closed?