PA's market analytics team service all data needs
Correctly designed and managed data services can help you manage customers, maintain product and accounting information and improve the distribution of information. PA's experienced market analytics staff will define the major components of your database using your specifications. This may involve conversion of an existing database, repair/enhancement of an existing database or development of a new database.
Database design
Our team is skilled in designing and implementing multi-purpose databases to store and output data that ultimately must be used to support business decisions. Our Microsoft Access © developers will review your existing relational database design and recommend improvements or a complete design for flat-file data and spreadsheets. For small projects we can develop a prototype of the database or one major component in a matter of days. This prototype will usually become your working database after the necessary refinements have been added.
Web site development
If you have a Web site that requires frequent content updates you should be using a database. A database-driven Web site can be easily maintained and allows a company to use non-technical people to manage the content in real time. Our market analytics team can help you build a user-friendly Web site for tracking customer or product information, managing large amounts of data and distributing information in real time to non-technical data users.
Data mining
Data mining technology uncovers hidden predictive information from large databases. Our professional researchers use exploratory data analysis techniques to uncover relationships not readily apparent in a database. We provide statistical tools for describing and visualizing large amounts of data, as well as performing verification data analysis.
Database assessment
Working with creators and users of the data, PA's research professionals assess all datasets to verify their accuracy and evaluate their efficacy for addressing business decisions. As a standard practice, we visually inspect the database and then examine the distributions of frequencies in the database. After these initial steps, strategies are established for handling missing data, outliers and extraneous 'noise'. Redundant variables in the dataset are identified and decisions made as to which variables to exclude from analysis. If databases are to be merged, common fields are identified and the quality of the matches verified.
Database supplementation
We help clients determine if the available data is relevant, current, and adequate to address the business goal. It is often possible to enhance the existing data by integrating it with other existing data sources - eg, census data, business attributes or internal customer records. Our professional researchers can also design and implement original survey research (by Web, telephone, or mail) to add key variables or information that is missing in existing data sources.
Data processing
Data processing services provided by PA include data coding and editing, data entry of hard copy forms (with 100% verification), optical scanning to process a large volume of data in a short time frame and data cleaning. We also perform program conversion to Microsoft Access, SAS, SPSS, Excel © or Web-based platforms. We can usually migrate all of your data as we convert your program. During this process we often find inconsistencies and errors in the design, which we resolve with your input.
