The concept of treating data assets like products is crucial for achieving data centralization and democratization. Data teams should adopt a product thinking mentality, focusing on creating products that solve practical problems for end-users of data assets. This involves understanding user needs, designing solutions iteratively, building minimum viable products (MVPs), launching internal data products, and assessing their impact through metrics such as user satisfaction and adoption rates. By applying this approach, data teams can develop high-impact projects, exercise product thinking, and ultimately create valuable data assets that support smooth operations within the organization.