Data Platform as a product

Setting up data platforms is often complex, costly, and time-consuming. Despite these investments, the ROI of such platforms is frequently low. Dashboards created for business teams often lack relevance, leading users to gradually abandon them due to a lack of trust in the data.

To build effective and sustainable tools, the Data Platform as a Product (DPaaP) approach treats the data platform as a product, placing user experience at the core of its design. This means developing dashboards and tables while considering business teams’ needs, concerns, and preferences. The focus is on:

• Improving UI for better usability
• Simplifying data exploration to encourage adoption
• Allowing users to trigger data refreshes via intuitive interfaces
• Continuously monitoring usage, measuring satisfaction, and iterating based on user feedback

The DPaaP approach helps create data platforms tailored to business needs, increasing adoption and long-term value. Close collaboration with end users ensures relevance, reliability, and usability of the data provided.

However, this user-centric approach requires time and multiple iterations to meet expectations that tech teams might find unnecessary, such as UI improvements. Additionally, ongoing monitoring and adjustments to accommodate business changes can be costly.

Theodo’s point of view

At Theodo, we use the DPaaP approach to build data platforms that offer a smooth and intuitive user experience. This approach engages users, makes them more accountable for data quality, and helps transition organizations toward a data mesh model. We highly recommend this method for companies struggling with "shadow data" or facing challenges in engaging their business teams.