While fundamentally it is nothing new, the concept of treating data like a product has gained prominence in the last decade. ‘Data Products” has been added to the lexicon of data engineers and business stakeholders alike. What was the catalyst behind this? I think the two main drivers were the advancements in the data warehousing and data lake space as well as the rise in business demands for data as strategic, marketable, and sellable asset. Couple that with the fact that data’s journey no longer ends with dashboarding and visualization. Machine learning and AI use cases have exploded with the popularization of generative AI and advanced computing methods. Data also has become more deeply engrained in applications, and data sharing and marketplaces are popping up. This all results in widespread data democratization, allowing more people to have access to more data to make more data-driven decisions. And while all this “more” can certainly lead to more value, there is also more responsibility as well. One of those responsibilities is data quality.
