I’ve worked with dozens of companies struggling to get the most out of their data, and I’ve noticed something interesting: many teams hit a wall with Power BI despite its user-friendly reputation. Today, I want to chat about how to know when it’s time to bring in some professional help.
Let me tell you, I’ve seen the transformation that happens when organisations finally unlock the full potential of their data. The right expertise can turn frustration into insight almost overnight!
What I Do as a Power BI Consultant
Before I jump into the warning signs, let me quickly explain what someone like me actually brings to the table. As a Power BI consultant, I:
- Design custom dashboards and reports that answer your specific business questions
- Connect and transform data from all your different systems
- Speed up those painfully slow reports
- Train your team so they can handle day-to-day tasks themselves
- Help you build a data strategy that actually drives business decisions
Now, let’s talk about those telltale signs that tell me you might need some expert help.
Sign 1: I Can Make (and Eat) a Three Course Meal While Your Reports Load
I visited a client last year who had “automated” their weekly reports through the use of various Excel files and some pretty in-depth VBA coding. These reports would spend literally hours compiling – they’d click refresh, then go off and do something else away from their laptop for a couple of hours, because their entire memory had been locked down by this report-building process. That’s not just annoying; it actively prevented this particular person from properly working whilst the reports loaded – they may as well have built them manually!
When I see slow reporting performance, I immediately look for:
- Overcomplicated data models
- Inefficient DAX measures (those calculations that power your visuals)
- Poorly developed ETL processes (Extract, Transform, Load – the pipeline loading process for databases and/or reporting platforms)
- Reports trying to process way too much information at once
I’ve also seen (with one marketing team I worked with) a Power BI semantic model that took nearly 2 hours to refresh. By restructuring this data model, we were able to cut down the refresh duration from nearly two hours to just under 10 minutes, which also meant we were able to increase the refresh intervals from daily to hourly. The marketing director told me that subsequently, report usage went up 300% in the weeks that followed simply because people weren’t avoiding the ‘laggy’ reports anymore.
Sign 2: I’m Juggling Data from a Million Different Places
“Our sales numbers don’t match our finance numbers, and neither matches what we’re reporting to the board.” I hear this constantly, and it usually means you’re struggling with data integration or too many data sources from which to report from.
I can spot this problem when I see teams:
- Manually copying data between systems (hello, Excel hell!)
- Getting different answers to the same question depending on which report they check
- Constantly dealing with refresh errors and data quality problems
I recently helped a retail client who had data spread across their point-of-sale system, inventory management software, an e-commerce platform, and about 5 different spreadsheets. We built a proper data pipeline that automatically brings everything together, cleans it up, and keeps it consistently updated.
The result? Instead of spending two days every month preparing reports, their analyst now spends that time actually analysing the data and finding opportunities to improve the business.
Sign 3: My Team Keeps Hitting Technical Roadblocks
I’ll let you in on a secret: Power BI looks simple on the surface, but the really powerful stuff happens when you dig deeper. I regularly work with teams who can create basic reports but struggle with:
- Writing complex DAX formulas that calculate exactly what they need
- Using M code in Power Query to clean up messy data
- Setting up row-level security so people only see what they’re supposed to
- Creating dataflows for enterprise-scale solutions
One healthcare client I worked with had brilliant analysts who knew exactly what questions they needed to answer, but being novices at Power BI and having a fairly complex data model, they just couldn’t figure out how to make Power BI do what they wanted. We paired up for a few weeks – I handled the technical implementation while simultaneously teaching them the techniques. By the end, they could handle everything themselves, and I made myself obsolete (which is always my goal!).
Sign 4: My Reports Have Lots of Numbers But No Real Insights
“We’ve got dashboards, but nobody uses them.” This might be the most common complaint I hear.
I worked with a manufacturing company that had beautiful reports filled with colorful charts tracking every possible metric. The problem? Nobody could tell me what actions they should take based on those numbers. The reports weren’t answering the questions that mattered.
Anyone who provides Power BI Consulting for a living, and is worth their salt, will start every project by asking something along the lines of: “What decisions do you need to make, and what information would help you make them?” They will then work backwards to design reports that directly answer those questions. (If these questions are not asked before you start a Power BI project, run!)
For that manufacturer, we scrapped half their visuals and focused on the key drivers of production efficiency. We added forecasting and what-if analysis that let managers simulate different scenarios. Suddenly, their reports became the first thing they checked each morning, not the thing they reluctantly updated for monthly meetings.
Sign 5: What Worked for My Small Team Falls Apart as We Grow
I love working with companies during growth phases because I get to help them scale their analytics properly. You might need help if:
- You worry about security as more people need access to sensitive data
- Every department has created their own reports with different designs and calculations
- You have no process for testing and deploying new reports
- Managing user access has become a administrative nightmare
A tech company I worked with when they first started up only had need for just three Power BI users. Three years later, I was called back in. They had 200+ people with Power BI access, multiple departments creating reports, and complete chaos. We implemented proper development practices, created shared datasets for consistency, and established a governance framework that maintained quality while still allowing flexibility.
I helped them create a roadmap that would grow their analytics capabilities alongside their business, ensuring they wouldn’t need to rip and replace everything in another year.
When You Might Not Need Power BI Consultancy
I believe in transparency, so I’ll tell you that you probably don’t need a consultant if:
- You’re just starting with very basic reporting needs
- You already have Power BI pros on your team who just need time to work
- You’re exploring BI but aren’t ready to commit resources yet
- Your organisation simply doesn’t make many data-driven decisions
That said, even in these situations (especially the last one), I often suggest a quick consultation. A few hours of expert advice can save you from mistakes that might take months to fix later.
How to Get the Most Value When You Do Hire Someone
If you’ve read this far and thought, “Yep, that sounds like us,” here’s my advice for getting the most from a consultant:
- Know what success looks like – I always ask clients to describe what they want to achieve in business terms, not technical ones
- Get your key players involved early – The people who’ll actually use the reports should help design them
- Start small – Pick a focused project to test the waters before committing to larger initiatives
- Learn as you go – Make sure knowledge transfer is part of the deal
- Consider ongoing support – Sometimes a few hours each month provides better value than a big one-off project
Let’s Talk About Your Power BI Journey
I’ve seen firsthand how the right expertise can transform an organisation’s relationship with data. Good Power BI implementation doesn’t just give you prettier reports – it changes how you make decisions.
Whether you’re struggling with slow reports, drowning in disparate data sources, hitting technical barriers, missing actionable insights, or facing scaling challenges, bringing in expert help might be the boost you need.
I believe every business can become data-driven with the right approach. Sometimes that means developing internal capabilities, sometimes it means partnering with external experts like us, and often it’s a combination of both.
The most important thing is taking that first step toward better business intelligence. Your competitors certainly are! I’d love to hear about your Power BI challenges – what’s holding you back from getting the insights you need?
