Can I get advice on my own data strategy during Data Expo Utrecht?

Yes, you can get advice on your own data strategy at Data Expo Utrecht. The event brings together data professionals, technology vendors, and consultants who are genuinely open to discussing real business challenges. Whether you are just starting to build a data strategy or looking to refine an existing one, the expo offers multiple opportunities for meaningful, one-on-one conversations.

That said, the quality of advice you receive depends heavily on how you approach the event and who you speak with. The sections below walk through everything you need to know to make the most of the data strategy consultation opportunities available at Data Expo Netherlands in 2026.

What kind of data strategy sessions are available at Data Expo Utrecht?

Data Expo Utrecht typically offers a mix of structured sessions and informal consultation opportunities. These include keynote presentations, panel discussions, breakout workshops, and open exhibition floor conversations with vendors and specialists. For data strategy advice specifically, the most valuable formats tend to be the smaller workshops and the direct conversations you have at exhibitor stands.

Workshops at data strategy events like this one are often designed to be interactive rather than purely informational. Facilitators will frequently invite attendees to share their own situations and work through challenges together. This makes them a practical setting for getting feedback on your specific direction rather than just absorbing general frameworks.

On the exhibition floor, many companies staff their stands with technical consultants rather than sales representatives alone. This means you can often have a substantive conversation about your data architecture, collection methods, or integration challenges without it immediately turning into a sales pitch. The key is knowing what to ask and being ready to explain your situation clearly.

Who at Data Expo Utrecht can advise on a specific data strategy?

The most relevant people to speak with about a specific data strategy at Data Expo Utrecht are independent consultants, technology specialists at exhibitor stands, and speakers who present on topics closely related to your challenges. These individuals bring hands-on experience rather than theoretical knowledge, which makes their input more directly applicable to your situation.

Independent consultants attending the event are often open to brief conversations and may offer to follow up after the event. Speakers are another strong resource. After a session, approaching a speaker with a focused question about your own context is a natural and well-received way to get targeted input. Most speakers attend these events precisely because they enjoy engaging with practitioners facing real problems.

Technology vendors can also provide valuable data strategy advice, particularly when your challenges involve data collection, indexing, integration, or search. Their expertise is often highly specific, which is useful if your strategy questions fall within their domain. Just be mindful that their perspective will naturally reflect the tools they offer, so it helps to speak with more than one party before drawing conclusions.

What data strategy topics can you actually discuss at the event?

At a data strategy event like Data Expo Utrecht, you can realistically discuss a wide range of topics, including data governance, data quality management, data collection and crawling methods, search and indexing architecture, compliance with privacy regulations such as GDPR, and how to structure data pipelines for business intelligence. The depth of conversation depends on the expertise of the person you are speaking with.

Practical topics that tend to generate the most useful conversations include:

• How to define clear data ownership within your organisation
• Which data sources are worth collecting and how to prioritise them
• How to structure data so it is searchable and usable across teams
• How to handle unstructured data and extract meaningful signals from it
• How to align your data strategy with legal requirements under GDPR
• How to evaluate whether to build internal data infrastructure or use external services

Topics that are harder to address in short conversations include full data architecture reviews or detailed technical audits. For those, a follow-up meeting after the event is usually more appropriate than trying to resolve everything on the day.

How should you prepare before seeking data strategy advice at Data Expo?

Before attending Data Expo Utrecht with the intention of getting data strategy advice, you should prepare a clear, concise summary of your current situation and your most pressing questions. Experts at these events speak with many people in a short time, so the more focused and specific you are, the more useful the feedback you will receive.

A practical preparation checklist looks like this:

1. Define your core challenge: What specific problem are you trying to solve with your data strategy? Be as concrete as possible.
2. Know your current setup: Understand what data you currently collect, how it is stored, and how it is used before asking for advice on what to change.
3. Identify your constraints: Budget, team size, technical capability, and compliance requirements all shape what advice is actually actionable for you.
4. Prepare two or three focused questions: Open-ended questions like “what should I do with my data?” are hard to answer well. Specific questions like “how should I structure crawled product data for a search index?” invite much more useful responses.
5. Research the exhibitors in advance: Look at who is attending and identify the companies or speakers whose expertise aligns with your challenges. Prioritise those conversations.

Arriving prepared also signals to the people you speak with that you are serious about your data strategy. That tends to elevate the quality of the conversation on both sides.

What should you do with the advice you receive after Data Expo Utrecht?

After Data Expo Utrecht, the most important step is to consolidate the advice you received while it is still fresh and evaluate it against your specific context. Not all advice will be equally applicable to your situation, so take time to filter what you heard through the lens of your actual constraints, goals, and existing infrastructure.

A useful post-event process includes:

• Writing up the key insights and recommendations from each conversation
• Following up with any contacts who offered to continue the discussion
• Mapping the advice against your current data strategy to identify gaps or contradictions
• Prioritising one or two concrete next steps rather than trying to act on everything at once
• Sharing relevant insights with the colleagues or stakeholders who will be involved in executing the strategy

It is also worth recognising that a single event conversation, however valuable, is rarely enough to finalise a data strategy. Use the expo as a starting point for deeper engagement. If a particular vendor or consultant gave you advice that resonated, a follow-up meeting where they can review your situation in more detail will almost always produce better results than a brief floor conversation alone.

How Openindex helps with your data strategy

We at Openindex specialise in exactly the kind of data challenges that come up most often in data strategy conversations: collecting the right data, making it searchable, and integrating it reliably into your systems. Based in Groningen, we work with organisations across e-commerce, real estate, finance, government, and market research to build solutions that are both technically robust and strategically aligned.

Here is what we can help you with concretely:

• Crawling as a Service: We handle the entire data collection process and deliver the data you need as a structured feed or direct integration.
• Search solutions: We build and implement search engines based on Apache Solr, Lucene, and Elasticsearch that deliver accurate, relevant results at scale.
• Data indexing and API development: We design tools and APIs that make your data accessible and usable across your applications.
• GDPR-compliant data collection: We help you collect and use data in a way that meets Dutch and European legal requirements.
• Custom development: From website and app development to infrastructure support, we build what your data strategy actually requires.

If Data Expo Utrecht has given you new ideas or raised new questions about your data strategy, we would be glad to continue that conversation. Get in touch with us to discuss your specific situation and explore what a tailored solution could look like for your organisation.