Industry leaders like DataKnobs don't build data products just to store data. They engineer them to execute 5 specific capabilities, moving from establishing the truth to automating complex business actions.
Every data product built by top-tier organizations is designed to deliver one or more of these distinct functional outcomes.
The foundation of all data work. This involves taking messy, fragmented raw data from multiple source systems, cleaning it, joining it, and producing a rich, unified "Single Source of Truth."
Moving beyond deterministic reporting to statistical modeling. This capability calculates the likelihood of various outcomes or states occurring based on current and historical data.
Structuring the data specifically to allow users or algorithms to benchmark entities. This reveals outliers, trends, and relative performance.
Deploying machine learning to forecast future states. The data product consumes current reality and outputs a highly educated guess about what will happen next.
The highest form of a data product. It prescribes the optimal next step, or bypasses human intervention entirely to automatically execute an action in operational systems.
Organizations often make the mistake of attempting to build "Automated Action" (Capability 5) products before they have mastered "Revealing Reality" (Capability 1).
The 5 capabilities are inherently cumulative. You cannot accurately predict an outcome if your baseline reality is built on fragmented, inaccurate raw data. Elite data companies scale their products step-by-step up the maturity curve.
Where do your current data products sit on the maturity curve? Stop acting on raw data and start engineering automated, prescriptive actions.