DATA MANAGEMENT: DATA FROM OTHER SYSTEMS

One problem with market research industry is that there are too many software suppliers for the size of the industry. This would be a much-reduced problem if more suppliers adhered to commonly accepted standards both within market research and the business world.

At MRDC, we ensure that all of our software products are flexible and work with data from as many sources as possible. Our policy is to ‘open' software systems – a term that is often abused. ‘Open' by our definition means easy to get data into AND easy to get data from. We would always advise against using data processing companies that process data in software that uses proprietary standards for managing data and its outputs.

Taking data from other systems has been facilitated by MRDC's modern computing policy;

• Our products adhere to the market research industry's Triple-S standard ( www.triple–s.org ) which is universally recognized as a practical base standard for storing data and project specifications. Our Chairman, Phil Hearn, is a contributor and advisor to the committee which manages and develops this standard.

• Our products are XML compatible. XML is the global business standard for interacting with other systems ( click here for further information ). Read this section if you want to learn how you can supply data to your customers more effectively.

• We can read data from most common proprietary standards. These include SPSS, Quantum, Confirmit, as well as products that store data in ASCII, Comma-separated (CSV), Excel format, tab-delimited and many other forms.

• The structure of our software and the XML that underpins it allows us to build links from other data sources at a fraction of the cost of most other companies

• We can take your lists – whether it is code lists, outlet lists, product lists – directly from Excel without having to edit our programs. This unique feature of our software means that look ups and lists can be maintained and updated by our clients or taken from online sources, so that analyses and reports are automatically generated .

• We have a range of skills within MRDC to advise on cost effective solutions to your data management issues. Bad data management can mean high costs, poor data and errors.