Business today often find themselves in need of quick and actionable insights. Usually, this involves data engineering to query APIs, build file streams, set up complex dimensional models, build visualizations, and deliver reports to management. For some organizations this can be handled by in house data teams, but for small or medium sized enterprises this can occasionally require a contracting team to come in and build the data product quickly and then scale down as projects conclude.

Data as a Service, or DAAS, is fast becoming a go to methodology for delivering key data to businesses in a timely, well organized, and dependable manner. DAAS is also known as catered data and is conceptually similar to a catering service. A company may need their data quickly and efficiently but doesn't necessarily need a dedicated on site data team to maintain the data flows post set up. It is the catering company's job to build advanced automated systems hosted in the cloud which can provide the data needed without any human input. Automation is key. All logging, metrics, warehousing, visualizations, and machine learning pipelines can be automated and fault tolerant. All necessary infrastructure is hosted by the cloud platform along with common security measures and data governance standards. These ingredients come together to enable quick and easy data product delivery.

For example: a business is engaging in a new initiative to capture customer sales for a specific ad campaign hosted on a third party website. The business calls a data contracting company and requests an evaluation and set up of the requested pipeline. The contracting firm will perform the requested activity according to predefined data contracting standards common to the "catering company". Once the contractors are in place, all data is flowing, and all data warehousing, cleansing, development, and data products are developed, the contractors can then present their favorite "data dishes" to interested business consumers. In the case of an ad campaign, this could mean executive summaries and dashboards for Directors or C-Suite execs, KPIs for team leads, and on demand, real time sales and operations statistics for tactical teams. Once the data has been "served" to the requesting parties, the contracting company can spin down and move to the next requester.

Any good catering company needs a kitchen to organize, collate, and manage ingredients. For a data catering company our "ingredients" are the raw data incoming into our data lake. It is vital to accurately and completely organize the raw ingredients, or data, correctly and systematically. Like food ingredients, some data requires special handling, such as particular governing standards for PII, HIPPA compliance, etc. These rules should be clearly defined by effective data governance standards in compliance with legal regulation and company compliance policies.

Generally, the client is the general proprietor of the cloud infrastructure required to maintain and run the processes developed by the contractor. Additionally, the client can have many built in processes and requirements catered to their particular needs, much like a caterer's client's kitchen. Although we are the chefs, are responsible for gathering the correct ingredients, maintaining our recipes, and preparing the dishes, ultimately the kitchen and all the pots, pans, etc. are owned by the client. The data engineering and development process requires a partnership, trust, and a relationship to operate most efficiently. Good customer service is essential to providing the best product.

The main purpose of the kitchen is, of course, to prepare amazing dishes! For us the cloud platform is our kitchen. We use the services provided by the cloud platform to prepare our data products for eventual presentation and ultimate consumption by interested parties. Our "chefs" are the engineers behind the scenes preparing and modeling the data using battle hardened data engineering techniques, or "recipes", to develop the required data products or "dishes".

As any caterer will tell you presentation and customer service as as essential as the food itself. If your customer service is not providing a good experience for the customer then no matter how well the food is prepared it will only ever taste bad. For us as data caterers our obligation begins and ends with great customer service. From the moment our customer begins interacting with our site our customer will feel valued not only as a potential client, but as a partner who is on the same team. When we say "customer service" we really mean "client relations", because we believe that we are in a partnership with our clients. Our customers should feel empowered by working with us. After all, data is knowledge, and knowledge is power. So, by performing well we actually do empower our clients, improve their capabilities, and help them achieve their goals.

Our "waitstaff" would be our customer service representatives as well as any technical presenters or team leads. These would be sales leads, engineering team leads, and reporting consultants. Basically anyone who interacts with the customer becomes the de facto face of the company.

Ah, finally! Now we are ready to serve our data to the hungry patrons. After all the hard work in the kitchen our data dishes are ready to be consumed by the end customers. The final step of the catering service is presenting the data products. We build data products using data visualization software, reporting tools, and custom reporting platforms if required. The visualizations are compelling, well thought out, clean, insightful, and relevant.

All of these different components of the business come together in our business to serve the needs of any client from small business to large enterprise clients. Our methods are scalable, methodical, general purpose, predictable, and maintainable. In fact, our methods are engineered to inspire confidence with our clients and build relationships. Our goal is to feed and nourish our clients though high quality data products and a high level of customer service and support. The quality of our service is felt from the first communication all the way through delivery of the product. Our goal is to empower our clients and encourage growth through education, information, and passion.