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Auxiliary Research

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The Little Stuff

Our auxiliary research service supplies short-term research tasks on a pay-as-you-go basis. Short-term means a number of hours or days within a work week. Auxiliary research spans the full range of services we provide. In addition, we offer a chart-of-the-week service, and a variety of preparatory research tasks.

Prepatory Research Tasks Include:

  • Diagrams
  • Tables
  • Flow-Charts
  • Summaries
  • Graphs
  • Interactive Web Charts
  • Slides
  • Brief Reports

Customization

Customized infographics and reports are an important part of building your research brand. Most off-the-shelf editors and business intelligence applications come with widely-used templates and add-ons, a uniquely styled report is distinguishable and enables consistent future reporting with only minor tweaking.

Datafirm can customized reports in the application of our choice, otherwise they are styled with LaTeX and integrated with coded infographics that are easily amended and reproduced.

Chart Of The Week

Our chart of the week service is available for your media or research, on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis. We collaborate with you to plan subject matter then deliver your product according to schedule.

Branding

Datafirm's research can be procured as an input to your project, with your brand on publishable results, or as a stand alone research service, with our brand on publishable results.

Confidentiality

Standard confidentiality clauses are include in our service contracts.

Contact us here to find out more about our research services.

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Research

Bigger Projects, Ongoing Research

More comprehensive research services are available across the full research pipeline, or at any intermediate stage. The research category applies to projects with timelines greater than a week and/or requiring more research power. Datafirm can consult with your team throughout the project, and/or do the heavy-lifting. Our mission is to make your project more successful.

The research pipeline includes:

  • Evaluating research demand
  • Research feasibility
  • Data science
  • Research
  • Graphical representation
  • Editing
  • Research questions
  • Project planning
  • Model selection
  • Sensitivity analysis
  • Academic writing
  • Publication preparation

Customization

Customized infographics and reports are an important part of building your brand. Most off-the-shelf editors and business intelligence applications come with widely-used templates and add-ons, a unique report styling is distinguishable and enables consistent future reporting with only minor tweaking.

Datafirm can customized reports in the application of our choice, otherwise they are styled with LaTeX and integrated with coded infographics that are easily amended and reproduced.

Branding

Datafirm's research can be procured as an input to your project, with your brand on publishable results, or as a stand alone research service, with our brand on publishable results.

Confidentiality

Standard confidentiality clauses are included in our service contracts.

Contact us here to find out more about our research services.

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Data Collection

Getting Your Data

Even brief reports and simple models are better with better data. For many projects, data can be mined from mainstream and national statistics agencies, public databases, and other on-line resources. In other cases, data needs to be collected through surveys and experiments. In corporate product research, for example, year-one depletions are often volumetrically forecast using internal historical sales data. While in macroeconomic statistics related projects, data may need to be gathered from disparate sources, then transformed. In some cases, for example at the regional or municipal level, data may not completely exist and may need to be modelled.

Whatever your data needs, Datafirm can simplify data collection for you or your team. We consult during data planning and implementation, then we get you the data you need.

Contact us here to find out more about our data collection service.

Data Curation

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Keeping Up With The Data

New platform technologies enter the market at a high rate. Data processes are more and more complex, as data itself is more and more abundant. Many existing organizations are investing heavily in upgrading all aspects of their data operations. Moreover, these operations store data in a variety of languages. Relational data bases might store data in a query language like SQL, while on-line data can be stored in an XML format, or increasingly an object oriented format, like JSON.

Looking forward, new schemas and languages will demand data are frequently translated across languages and formats. Data bases will need to be maintained. Data plans should also occasionally be reassessed: query needs may change, data bases may need partitioning, new data bases may need to be added, old ones may need tidying.

Datafirm's curation service can be used to translate your data and maintain your organization or project data with minimal hassle. This is an opportunity to reassess your data architecture so data are stored tidily and efficiently.

Contact us here to find out more about our data curation service.

Data Wrangling

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Preparing The Data

Once your data is acquired, if it is not already prepared, it needs to be. A lot time and effort can go into cleaning raw data so it is usable for analysis, presentation, and modelling. Missing variables need to be dealt with, data-types need to be consistent and workable, erroneous variables need to be filtered out, while predictive variables may require normalization or transformation into meaningful statistics.This is where data wrangling comes in.

Datafirm can wrangle data rapidly in a variety of formats with a variety of programs. This process includes sorting, filtering, factoring, concatenating, arranging, and processing data into statistics. It can be scripted so data are reproducibly archived and easily reprocessed as data cycles mature and models are rerun.

Contact us here to find out more about our data curation service.

Modelling

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Solving Real World Problems With Data

Modelling is an important part of decision science. Modellers make simplified representations of reality to produce judgements about reality and guide real decisions. Models can be abstract and theoretical, or data driven and empirical. Both categories can be prescriptive, predictive, or descriptive. For example, Simple plotting techniques used to present and analyse data during the preparation phase are descriptive models, while more complex empirically driven statistical models, that enable statistical inference of characteristics in underlying populations, can be both prescriptive and predictive.

Data mining is another example of a predictive, prescriptive, and descriptive modelling. Data mining is a catch-all phrase describing the application of evolving data science techniques to extract patterns from data. It combines methods from statistics, associative rule learning, cluster analysis, and more, to design algorithms that comb data sets for meaningful insights.

In fact, there are seemingly as many types of models and methods as there are situations where modelling can be advantageous. While the large organization may be equipped in house to assess an optimal modelling strategy, given data availability, budget and time constraints, and/or audience expectations, smaller organizations, and those operating near full capacity, can benefit greatly by outsourcing aspects of the modelling process.

Data firm offers an empirical modelling service with a range of descriptive, predictive and prescriptive models. Our models give decision makers the facts, figures, and evidence they need to lobby for, proceed with, and justify critical decisions

Click here to show model types.

    Descriptive models

  • Best/worse case analysis
  • What-if analyis
  • Break-even modelling
  • Exploratory Data Analysis
  • Input/output modelling

    Decision models

  • Pay-off matrix modelling
  • Decision tree analysis
  • Cost-benefit modelling
  • Probabilistic models

    Computational models

  • Linear Programming
  • Network Models
  • Goal Programming
  • Discriminant Analysis
  • Queuing theory
  • General Equilibrium

    Econometric Models

  • Multivariate regression analysis
  • Probit and Logit models
  • Parametric modelling

Contact us here to enquire into our modelling capacity.

Decision Science

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Decision Research

Decision science is a subset of management science. It answers questions like: "which decision should be made," "when should it be made," and "what future consequences will arise from it?" Most decision makers excel at performing under pressure and delivering tough decisions under tight deadlines; that's what they are paid to do. The better ones of course find ways to bring as much information to bear on the decisions they make in the time frames they have. Decision makers also need to sell and justify decisions. For these reasons decisions are often run through best case/worst case analysis, what-if analysis, risk-assessments, probabilistic and non-probabilistic pay-off matrices, decision trees, and more. The more tools available to inform decisions, the more confidently leadership and rank and file can execute them.

Datafirm applies data science to decision science to deliver critical analysis and appealing data rich presentations so decision makers can proceed with the facts, figures and tangible evidence they need to justify their decisions and recommendations.

Contact us here to find out more about our decision analysis research.

Economic Feasibility

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Capital Allocation Research

Public and private organizations, and partnerships between the two, face choices between alternative investments in gross fixed capital formation. Each investment, from infrastructure projects to departmental capital outlays, needs to be rigorously analyzed. On the demand side, forward looking conditions need to be carefully forecast. How will demand two years out impact net-present values? On the supply side, inputs to production need to be sourced and procured. What are the current procurement rules? Is it better to source inputs locally, or from a distant supplier? An economic feasibility study is an intensive application of decision science that includes economic modelling, financial mathematics, and legal and political analysis. Both sides of a potential transaction need to proceed with a feasibility study. All of Datafirm's services, from data maintenance and data processing to research are available as inputs to feasibility studies.

Contact us here to find out more about our feasibility studies.

Investment Analysis

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Financial Market Research

Financial analysis is a critical input to financial market participation, both on the sell side and the buy side. All manner of financial enterprises, from hedge funds, brokerages, and individual traders, to mutual funds, pensions, and other institutional dealers consume large amounts of financial research. Ticker data, financial statement data, macroeconomic data, and firm and product specific data, all serve as inputs into enterprise valuations, intrinsic value calculations, and ultimately buy, sell, or hold recommendations. Datafirm's research services are available as inputs to financial market participants, both on the sell side and the buy side. We do standard financial analysis to produce content for outward facing reports and articles, and inward facing financial market decisions.

Contact us here to find out more about our financial market research.

Business Analysis

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Business Case Research

Business planning, case analysis, prospectus writing, each require data analysis and research services. In the data analysis case, Datafirm provides proforma forecasting, break-even analysis, and various forms of market analysis and research. These include but are not limited to test-market forecasting, that relies on experiment driven data, executive judgement forecasting, where inputs are derived from executive experience, diffusion modelling, and before-after-trials. Our pay-as-you-go services, that include graphical presentations, written material, and custom formatted reports, are available to those organizations sourcing business case research.

Contact us here to find out more about our business case research.

Macroeconomic Research

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International Statistics

International macroeconomic statistics are categorized, coded, and stored in a wide range of formats. The Data Science of international statistics is heavy on the data wrangling. Various coding and recording schemes require data are transformed and harmonized before they can be implemented in models, or used to produce the visuals necessary for decision advocation. National trade data bases store data with highly coded data dictionaries that are not often internationally harmonized. Mainstream international statistics agencies, and data caches, may have over or under processed their data. It needs to be carefully deciphered before it is aggregated with data from other sources. Datafirm firm provides computational support and expertise in the data science of international and national level macroeconomic statistics.

Contact us here to find out more about our macroeconomic research services.

Policy Research

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Policy Research

Policy analysis is a necessary research intensive field. Political actors need to be informed on the legal side and on the data side. Policy modellers need to understand historical political and social circumstances as well as legal frameworks underlying potential policies. Datafirm's data rich modelling and research services, across the research pipeline, can be useful to organizations, policy makers, advocates, and institutions presenting political analysis to stakeholders, committees, constituents, and critics.

Contact us here to find out more about our policy research service.

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