Saturday, 31 August 2013

Healthcare Marketing Series - Data Mining - The 21st Century Marketing Gold Rush

There is gold in them there hills! Well there is gold right within a few blocks of your office. Mining for patients, not unlike mining for gold or drilling for oil requires either great luck or great research.

It's all about the odds.

It's true that like old Jed from the Beverly Hillbillies, you might just take a shot and strike oil. But more likely you might drill a dry hole or dig a mine and find dirt not diamonds. Without research you might be a mere 2 feet from pay dirt, but drilling or mining in just the wrong spot.

Now oil companies and gold mining companies spend millions, if not, billions of dollars studying where and how to effectively find the "mother load". If market research is good enough for the big boys, it should be good enough for the healthcare provider. Remember as a health care professional you probably don't have the extras millions laying around to squander on trial and error marketing.

If you did there would be little need for you to market to find new patients to help.

In previous articles in the Health Care Marketing Series we talked about developing a marketing strategy, using metrics to measure the performance of your marketing execution, developing effective marketing warheads based on your marketing strategy, evaluating the most efficient ways to deliver those warheads, your marketing missile systems, and tying several marketing methods together into a marketing MIRV.

If you have been following along with our articles and starting to integrate the concepts detailed in them, by now you should have an excellent marketing infrastructure. Ready to launch laser guided marketing missiles tipped with nuclear marketing MIRVs. The better you have done your research, the more detailed your marketing strategy, the more effective and efficient your delivery systems, the bigger bang you'll receive from your marketing campaign. And ultimately the more lives you will help to change of patients that truly can benefit from your skills and talents as a doctor.

Sounds like you're ready for healthcare marketing shock and awe.

Everything is ready to launch, this is great, press the button and fire away!

Ah, but wait just a minute, General. What is the target? Where are they? What are the aiming coordinates?

The target? Why of course all those sick people out there.

Where are they? Well of course, out there!

The coordinates? Man just press the button, carpet bomb man. Carpet bomb!

This scenario is designed to show you how quickly the wheels can come off even the best intended marketing war machine. It brings us back full circle. We are right back to our original article on marketing strategy.

But this time we are going to introduce the concept of data mining. If you remember, our article on marketing strategy talked about doing research. We talked about research as the true cornerstone of all marketing efforts.

What is the target, General?

Answering this question is a little difficult and the truth is each healthcare provider needs to determine his or her high value target. And more importantly needs to know how to determine his or her high value targets.

Let's go back to our launch scenario to illustrate this point. Let's continue with our military analogy. Let's say we have several aircraft carriers, a few destroyers and a fleet of rowboats, making up our marketing battlefield.

As we have discussed previously, waging a marketing war, like any war, consumes resources. So do we want to launch our nuclear marketing MIRVs, the most valuable resources in our arsenal, and target the fleet of rowboats?

Or would it be wiser to target those aircraft carriers?

Well the obvious answer is "get those carriers".

But here is where things get a little tricky. One man's aircraft carrier is another man's rowboat.

You have to data mine your practice to determine which targets are high value targets.

What goes into that data mining process? Well first and foremost, what conditions do you 1.like to treat, 2. have a proven track record of treating and 3. obtain a reasonable reimbursement for treating.

In my own practice, I typically do not like or enjoy treating shoulder problems. I don't know if I don't like treating shoulders because I haven't had great results with them or if I haven't had great results, because I don't like treating them. Needless to say my reimbursement for treating shoulder cases is relatively low.

So do I really want to carpet bomb my marketing terrain and come up with 10 new cases of rotator cuff tears? These cases, for more than one reason, are my rowboats.

On the contrary, I like to treat neurological conditions like chronic pain; Neuropathy patients, Spinal Stenosis patients, Tinnitus patients, patients with Parkinson's Disease and Multiple Sclerosis patients. I've had results with these types of cases that have been good enough to publish. Because they are complex and difficult cases, I obtain a better than average reimbursement for my efforts. These cases are my aircraft carriers. If my marketing campaign brings me ten cases with these types of problems, chances are that the patient will obtain some great relief, I will find working with them an intellectual and stimulating challenge and my marketing efforts will bring me a handsome return on investment.

So the first lesson of data mining is to identify your aircraft carriers. They must be "your" aircraft carriers. You must have a good personal track record of helping these types of patients. You should enjoy treating these types of cases. And you should be rewarded for your time and expertise.

That's the first step in the process. Identifying your high value targets. The next step is THE most important aspect of healthcare marketing. As I discussed above, I enjoy working with complex neurological cases. But how many of these types of patients exist in my marketing terrain and are they looking for the type of help I can offer?

Being able to accurately answer these important questions is the single most valuable information I can extract using data mining.

It doesn't matter if I like treating these cases. It doesn't matter if I make a good living treating these cases. It doesn't matter if my success in treating these cases has made the local news. What matters is 1. do these types of cases exist in my neighborhood and 2. are they looking for the help I can provide to them?

You absolutely positively need to know who is looking for what in your marketing terrain and if what people are clamoring for is what you have to offer.

This knowledge is the most powerful tool in your marketing arsenal. It's your secret weapon. It is the foundation of your marketing strategy. It is so important that you should consider moving your office if the results of your data mining don't reveal an ocean full of aircraft carriers in your marketing terrain for you to target.

If your market research does not reveal an abundance of aircraft carriers on your horizon, you need to either 1. move to a new battlefield, 2. re-target your efforts towards the destroyers in your market or 3. try to create a market.

Let's look at your last choice. Trying to create a market. Unless you are Coke or Pepsi, your ability to create a market as a health care provider is extremely limited. To continue on with our analogy, to create a market requires converting rowboats into, at least, destroyers, but better yet aircraft carriers.

What would it cost if you took a rowboat to a ship yard and told them to rebuild it as an aircraft carrier?

This is what you face if you try to create a market where none exists. Unless you have a personality flaw and thrive on selling ice to Eskimos, creating a market is not a rewarding proposition.

So scratch this option off the table right now.

What about re-targeting your campaign towards destroyers? That's a viable option. It's a good option. It's probably your best option. It's an option that will likely give you your best return on investment. It is recommended that you focus your arsenal on the destroyers while at the same time never passing on an opportunity to sink an aircraft carrier.

So what is the secret? How do you data mine for aircraft carriers?

Well its quite simple in the internet age. Just use the services of a market research firm. I like http://www.marketresearch.com They will do the data mining for you.

They can provide market intelligence that will tell you not only what the health care aircraft carriers are, but also where they are.

With this information, you will have a competitive advantage in your marketing battlefield. You can segment, and target high value targets in your area while your competitors squander their marketing resources on rowboats. Or even worse carpet bomb and hit ocean water, not valuable targets.

Your marketing strategy should be highly targeted. Your marketing resources should be well spent. As we discussed in our very first article on true "Marketing Strategy" you should enter the battle against your competition already knowing your have won.

What gives you this dominant position in the market, is knowing ahead-of-time, who is looking for what in your marketing terrain. In other words, not trying to create a market, but rather identifying existing market niches, specifically targeting them with laser guided precision and having headlines and ad copy based on your strength versus the weakness of your competition within that niche.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Healthcare-Marketing-Series---Data-Mining---The--21st-Century-Marketing-Gold-Rush&id=1486283

Friday, 30 August 2013

Outsource Data Mining Services to Offshore Data Entry Company

Companies in India offer complete solution services for all type of data mining services.

Data Mining Services and Web research services offered, help businesses get critical information for their analysis and marketing campaigns. As this process requires professionals with good knowledge in internet research or online research, customers can take advantage of outsourcing their Data Mining, Data extraction and Data Collection services to utilize resources at a very competitive price.

In the time of recession every company is very careful about cost. So companies are now trying to find ways to cut down cost and outsourcing is good option for reducing cost. It is essential for each size of business from small size to large size organization. Data entry is most famous work among all outsourcing work. To meet high quality and precise data entry demands most corporate firms prefer to outsource data entry services to offshore countries like India.

In India there are number of companies which offer high quality data entry work at cheapest rate. Outsourcing data mining work is the crucial requirement of all rapidly growing Companies who want to focus on their core areas and want to control their cost.

Why outsource your data entry requirements?

Easy and fast communication: Flexibility in communication method is provided where they will be ready to talk with you at your convenient time, as per demand of work dedicated resource or whole team will be assigned to drive the project.

Quality with high level of Accuracy: Experienced companies handling a variety of data-entry projects develop whole new type of quality process for maintaining best quality at work.

Turn Around Time: Capability to deliver fast turnaround time as per project requirements to meet up your project deadline, dedicated staff(s) can work 24/7 with high level of accuracy.

Affordable Rate: Services provided at affordable rates in the industry. For minimizing cost, customization of each and every aspect of the system is undertaken for efficiently handling work.

Outsourcing Service Providers are outsourcing companies providing business process outsourcing services specializing in data mining services and data entry services. Team of highly skilled and efficient people, with a singular focus on data processing, data mining and data entry outsourcing services catering to data entry projects of a varied nature and type.

Why outsource data mining services?

360 degree Data Processing Operations
Free Pilots Before You Hire
Years of Data Entry and Processing Experience
Domain Expertise in Multiple Industries
Best Outsourcing Prices in Industry
Highly Scalable Business Infrastructure
24X7 Round The Clock Services

The expertise management and teams have delivered millions of processed data and records to customers from USA, Canada, UK and other European Countries and Australia.

Outsourcing companies specialize in data entry operations and guarantee highest quality & on time delivery at the least expensive prices.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Outsource-Data-Mining-Services-to-Offshore-Data-Entry-Company&id=4027029

Thursday, 29 August 2013

Data Entry in Outsourcing Businesses

The process in, which a business house engages another company to do a particular type of work instead of using its own employees to do the same work, is called outsourcing. This is basically practiced so that the company can concentrate more on the core function. The cheap cost of outsourcing work is also another reason.

Outsourcing companies are often referred as "business to business" companies. Their business is dependent on the service provided by them to other business houses. Nowadays, every company is engaged in outsourcing. When a sole proprietor gives responsibility to another to buy supplies for the office, then automatically this process becomes outsourcing. In a real sense, it is almost impossible to do everything by yourself. You have to become dependent on those who are skilled in certain fields.

Data entry is one of the oldest and well known as the most common outsourcing activities that have been widely accepted across the globe for a long period of time. Still today, the demand is sky rocketing and the scope of data entry companies are just expanding.

All companies value their data very much. In order to generate good business, you need to deal with your data efficiently. Thus, companies related to BTB activities take care of the data handling very seriously. The employees are trained and prepared for all sorts of detailed oriented work. The services vary from back office support for a banking institute, calculation of medical bills, maintaining payroll functions etc. Banks generally outsource the work of the business class customers. Lock box payment is one of such example.

There are plenty of companies in the market of outsourcing who are engaged in providing in different kinds of services to the clients all across the globe. Many companies, which are earlier engaged into hard core data entry operations, are now exploring the area of medical billing, research work, project work for various universities, marketing job, news agencies, trade and several types of insurance organizations.

You can help your company to grow and reach a tremendous height once you get accustomed to take the advantages from various available data entry work. The service providers take an extra step to make sure that the work those are being delivered are of high quality and fulfill all the requirements as asked by the clients. Accuracy and punctually are the keywords to survive in the outsourcing market. Companies prefer outsourcing as the cost is always lower than the company would require spending on salaries if the same work was done by their own employees. Outsourcing is a very lucrative option for many business houses as it gives you the freedom to concentrate on your core business process and even you end up saving a good sum of money by outsourcing data entry work.




Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Entry-in-Outsourcing-Businesses&id=2021508

Wednesday, 28 August 2013

Data Entry Services Help Your Business Flow Smoothly

A business comes into existence with the sole motive of earning profits and a business owner will take all steps within his means to ensure that work keeps on flowing smoothly and the optimum utilization of resources takes place. Every division in the organization is created with the objective of catalyzing the growth and not causing a hindrance to the progress of the business. Hence it is important to consider each division carefully and analyze if any further optimization can be undertaken at any level. The finance division of a business is one of the most crucial aspects of any organization. It is responsible for maintaining a check and keeping a record of each and every transaction that takes place in the day to day running of the business by data entry services provided by professionals or in-house accounts personnel. This ensures that necessary information regarding the plans; strategies and policies of the organization are available at a moment's notice to facilitate decision-making by the senior management.

Data entry services by professionals appointed for this task play a crucial role in running a business successfully. It makes a major difference in the performance standards of any business. Outsourcing a competent firm for providing your business with data entry services helps you in optimization of resources that were earlier being invested in the accounts department to take care of this crucial need of the business. Data entry services provided by experienced professionals help your business to save time and money and help the organization to increase the pace of regular business activities. The other competitive advantage provided by the data entry services include the ready availability of accurate and authentic at any given point that helps to facilitate decision making for profit creation and expansion of the business. Accurate data maintained on a daily basis and transferred online to the organization help the business to keep track of each expense incurred and profit gained thereby enabling the business to chart out the next course of action.

Data entry services are provided by professionally competent firms who hire experienced individuals to cater to the requirements of every individual client. The data entry services are usually provided round the clock to ensure that the client does not have to wait or face delays when the data is urgently required. The data entry services are provided by vendors who have years of experience, advanced technology and software to carry out the work and required flexibility to accommodate the needs of the client. It is therefore a viable option for any business irrespective of whether it is small or a big corporation. Data entry services, though not complex in nature, but are highly time consuming and this is the prime reason why companies need to outsource this service to cut down on the cost spend on hiring data entry professionals on the company payroll. The data entry services provided by a reputed vendor will ensure that you have highly accurate data properly accumulated for your reference while the confidentiality of your data is also assured. Hence outsourcing data entry services might be the best option for any business in this competitive world.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Entry-Services-Help-Your-Business-Flow-Smoothly&id=641783

Monday, 26 August 2013

One of the Main Differences Between Statistical Analysis and Data Mining

Two methods of analyzing data that are common in both academic and commercial fields are statistical analysis and data mining. While statistical analysis has a long scientific history, data mining is a more recent method of data analysis that has arisen from Computer Science. In this article I want to give an introduction to these methods and outline what I believe is one of the main differences between the two fields of analysis.

Statistical analysis commonly involves an analyst formulating a hypothesis and then testing the validity of this hypothesis by running statistical tests on data that may have been collected for the purpose. For example, if an analyst was studying the relationship between income level and the ability to get a loan, the analyst may hypothesis that there will be a correlation between income level and the amount of credit someone may qualify for.

The analyst could then test this hypothesis with the use of a data set that contains a number of people along with their income levels and the credit available to them. A test could be run that indicates for example that there may be a high degree of confidence that there is indeed a correlation between income and available credit. The main point here is that the analyst has formulated a hypothesis and then used a statistical test along with a data set to provide evidence in support or against that hypothesis.

Data mining is another area of data analysis that has arisen more recently from computer science that has a number of differences to traditional statistical analysis. Firstly, many data mining techniques are designed to be applied to very large data sets, while statistical analysis techniques are often designed to form evidence in support or against a hypothesis from a more limited set of data.

Probably the mist significant difference here, however, is that data mining techniques are not used so much to form confidence in a hypothesis, but rather extract unknown relationships may be present in the data set. This is probably best illustrated with an example. Rather than in the above case where a statistician may form a hypothesis between income levels and an applicants ability to get a loan, in data mining, there is not typically an initial hypothesis. A data mining analyst may have a large data set on loans that have been given to people along with demographic information of these people such as their income level, their age, any existing debts they have and if they have ever defaulted on a loan before.

A data mining technique may then search through this large data set and extract a previously unknown relationship between income levels, peoples existing debt and their ability to get a loan.

While there are quite a few differences between statistical analysis and data mining, I believe this difference is at the heart of the issue. A lot of statistical analysis is about analyzing data to either form confidence for or against a stated hypothesis while data mining is often more about applying an algorithm to a data set to extract previously unforeseen relationships.




Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?One-of-the-Main-Differences-Between-Statistical-Analysis-and-Data-Mining&id=4578250

Saturday, 24 August 2013

Data Mining - Critical for Businesses to Tap the Unexplored Market

Knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) is an emerging field and is increasingly gaining importance in today's business. The knowledge discovery process, however, is vast, involving understanding of the business and its requirements, data selection, processing, mining and evaluation or interpretation; it does not have any pre-defined set of rules to go about solving a problem. Among the other stages, the data mining process holds high importance as the task involves identification of new patterns that have not been detected earlier from the dataset. This is relatively a broad concept involving web mining, text mining, online mining etc.

What Data Mining is and what it is not?

The data mining is the process of extracting information, which has been collected, analyzed and prepared, from the dataset and identifying new patterns from that information. At this juncture, it is also important to understand what it is not. The concept is often misunderstood for knowledge gathering, processing, analysis and interpretation/ inference derivation. While these processes are absolutely not data mining, they are very much necessary for its successful implementation.

The 'First-mover Advantage'

One of the major goals of the data mining process is to identify an unknown or rather unexplored segment that had always existed in the business or industry, but was overlooked. The process, when done meticulously using appropriate techniques, could even make way for niche segments providing companies the first-mover advantage. In any industry, the first-mover would bag the maximum benefits and exploit resources besides setting standards for other players to follow. The whole process is thus considered to be a worthy approach to identify unknown segments.

The online knowledge collection and research is the concept involving many complications and, therefore, outsourcing the data mining services often proves viable for large companies that cannot devote time for the task. Outsourcing the web mining services or text mining services would save an organization's productive time which would otherwise be spent in researching.

The data mining algorithms and challenges

Every data mining task follows certain algorithms using statistical methods, cluster analysis or decision tree techniques. However, there is no single universally accepted technique that can be adopted for all. Rather, the process completely depends on the nature of the business, industry and its requirements. Thus, appropriate methods have to be chosen depending upon the business operations.

The whole process is a subset of knowledge discovery process and as such involves different challenges. Analysis and preparation of dataset is very crucial as the well-researched material could assist in extracting only the relevant yet unidentified information useful for the business. Hence, the analysis of the gathered material and preparation of dataset, which also considers industrial standards during the process, would consume more time and labor. Investment is another major challenge in the process as it involves huge cost on deploying professionals with adequate domain knowledge plus knowledge on statistical and technological aspects.

The importance of maintaining a comprehensive database prompted the need for data mining which, in turn, paved way for niche concepts. Though the concept has been present for years now, companies faced with ever growing competition have realized its importance only in the recent years. Besides being relevant, the dataset from where the information is actually extracted also has to be sufficient enough so as to pull out and identify a new dimension. Yet, a standardized approach would result in better understanding and implementation of the newly identified patterns.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Mining---Critical-for-Businesses-to-Tap-the-Unexplored-Market&id=6745886

Friday, 23 August 2013

Importance of Data Mining Services in Business

Data mining is used in re-establishment of hidden information of the data of the algorithms. It helps to extract the useful information starting from the data, which can be useful to make practical interpretations for the decision making.
It can be technically defined as automated extraction of hidden information of great databases for the predictive analysis. In other words, it is the retrieval of useful information from large masses of data, which is also presented in an analyzed form for specific decision-making. Although data mining is a relatively new term, the technology is not. It is thus also known as Knowledge discovery in databases since it grip searching for implied information in large databases.
It is primarily used today by companies with a strong customer focus - retail, financial, communication and marketing organizations. It is having lot of importance because of its huge applicability. It is being used increasingly in business applications for understanding and then predicting valuable data, like consumer buying actions and buying tendency, profiles of customers, industry analysis, etc. It is used in several applications like market research, consumer behavior, direct marketing, bioinformatics, genetics, text analysis, e-commerce, customer relationship management and financial services.

However, the use of some advanced technologies makes it a decision making tool as well. It is used in market research, industry research and for competitor analysis. It has applications in major industries like direct marketing, e-commerce, customer relationship management, scientific tests, genetics, financial services and utilities.

Data mining consists of major elements:

    Extract and load operation data onto the data store system.
    Store and manage the data in a multidimensional database system.
    Provide data access to business analysts and information technology professionals.
    Analyze the data by application software.
    Present the data in a useful format, such as a graph or table.

The use of data mining in business makes the data more related in application. There are several kinds of data mining: text mining, web mining, relational databases, graphic data mining, audio mining and video mining, which are all used in business intelligence applications. Data mining software is used to analyze consumer data and trends in banking as well as many other industries.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Importance-of-Data-Mining-Services-in-Business&id=2601221

Thursday, 22 August 2013

Choosing an Offsite Data Storage Service

While searching for a viable way to store my data from both my PC and laptop, I considered several options. I could subscribe to an online service, an offsite storage center or a hybrid of the two. Not totally comfortable with leaving everything in the virtual world, I opted for offsite data storage. Since I did not have a very big budget, I found this to be an answer to my immediate storage needs.

Offsite data storage venders allow you to send critical information to a central storage facility. The central data storage facility will offer real time back up and offer easy access to your data when you need it. All you need to do is log in to a web-based system and with a few clicks, you can bring up any file you need instantly.

Depending on your needs, mine are modest; offsite data storage venders offer a broad range of price structures which will suit any budget. A typical plan, such as one offered by RDS backup online vendor, includes the following: 500 Mb storage for $9.99 per month, 1 Gb storage for $15.99 per month and ranges upward to the 8 Gb storage for $39.99 per month. It really depends on your budget.

Offsite Backup Solutions web store offers a comparable plan for offsite data storage. Data is held in an offsite data server until you decide to retrieve it. It is very similar to a tape back up system, only it doesn't have the hassle or expense associated with it. This company's budget offers attractive backup plans beginning with an affordable one dollar per Gigabyte. They can work with any operation system, store large amounts of data and offer unlimited free technical support. Speaking of free, they currently offer a fully functional 100 Gb 30 day trial. It wouldn't hurt to check it out.

4 Service's offsite security for storing your data is fantastic if you want access to your data available to you in more than one geographical area. They recommend having your data stored in several different areas in the event of a natural disaster wiping out a whole region. They have offsite storage facilities available in California, Nevada and Missouri. The vaults they keep the data in are environmentally sound, secure and are routinely checked for signs of damage. I personally like the level of security this company prides itself on. Each individual customer's data Is as equally important as any corporate level account. Nowadays, it seems security does bring peace to one's mind.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Choosing-an-Offsite-Data-Storage-Service&id=3328442

Tuesday, 20 August 2013

Advantages of Data Mining in Various Businesses

Data mining techniques have advantages for several types of businesses, as well as there are more to be discovered over time. Since the era of the computer, things have been changing pretty quickly and every new step in the technology is equivalent to a revolution. Communication itself has not been enough. As compared to the present times, the data analyzers in the past have not achieved the chance to go further with the data they have in hand. Today, this data isn't used for selling more of a product but to foresee future risks as well as prevent them.

All are benefiting from modern these techniques even from smaller to large enterprises. They can now predict the outcome of a particular marketing campaign by analyzing them. However, in order for these techniques to be successful, the data must be arranged accurately. If your data is disseminated, you need to bring it in a meeting and then feed into the systems for the algorithms to figure it out. To put it shortly, no matter how small or big your business might be you always need to have the right system when collecting data from your customers, transactions and all business activities.

Advantages of Data Mining For Businesses

Businesses can truly benefit from its latest techniques; however, in the future, data mining techniques are expected to be even more concise and effective than they are today. Here are the essential techniques that you need to understand:

· Big companies providing the free web based email services can use data mining techniques to catch spam emails from their customer's inboxes. Their software uses a technique to assess whether an email is a spam or not. These techniques are first tested and validated before they are finally used. This is to ensure they are producing the correct results.

· Large retail stores and even shopping malls could make use of these techniques by registering and recording the transactions made by their customers. When customers are buying particular sets of product, it can give them a good understanding of placing these items in the aisle. If they want to change the order and placement of the item on weekends, it could be found out after analyzing the data on their database.

· Companies manufacturing edible or drinkable products could easily use data mining techniques to increase their sales in a particular area and launch new products based on the information they've obtained. That's why the conventional statistical analysis is rigid in scenarios wherein consumer behavior is in question. However, these techniques still manages to give you good analysis for any situations.

· In call centers, the human interaction is at its peak because people are talking with another people at all times. Customers respond differently when they talk to a female representative as opposed to talking to a male representative. The response of customers to an infomercial is different from their response to an ad in the newspaper. Data could be used for the benefit of the business and is best understood with the use of data mining techniques.

· Data mining techniques are also being used in sports today for analyzing the performances of players in the field. Any game could be analyzed with the help of these techniques; even the behaviors of players could be changed on the field through this.

In short, data mining techniques are giving the organizations, enterprises and smaller businesses the power of focusing on their most productive areas. These techniques also allow stores and companies to innovate their current selling techniques by unveiling the hidden trends of their customer's behavior, background, price of the products, placement, closeness to the related products and many more.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Advantages-of-Data-Mining-in-Various-Businesses&id=7568546

Saturday, 17 August 2013

Why Outsourcing Data Mining Services?

Are huge volumes of raw data waiting to be converted into information that you can use? Your organization's hunt for valuable information ends with valuable data mining, which can help to bring more accuracy and clarity in decision making process.

Nowadays world is information hungry and with Internet offering flexible communication, there is remarkable flow of data. It is significant to make the data available in a readily workable format where it can be of great help to your business. Then filtered data is of considerable use to the organization and efficient this services to increase profits, smooth work flow and ameliorating overall risks.

Data mining is a process that engages sorting through vast amounts of data and seeking out the pertinent information. Most of the instance data mining is conducted by professional, business organizations and financial analysts, although there are many growing fields that are finding the benefits of using in their business.

Data mining is helpful in every decision to make it quick and feasible. The information obtained by it is used for several applications for decision-making relating to direct marketing, e-commerce, customer relationship management, healthcare, scientific tests, telecommunications, financial services and utilities.

Data mining services include:

    Congregation data from websites into excel database
    Searching & collecting contact information from websites
    Using software to extract data from websites
    Extracting and summarizing stories from news sources
    Gathering information about competitors business

In this globalization era, handling your important data is becoming a headache for many business verticals. Then outsourcing is profitable option for your business. Since all projects are customized to suit the exact needs of the customer, huge savings in terms of time, money and infrastructure can be realized.

Advantages of Outsourcing Data Mining Services:

    Skilled and qualified technical staff who are proficient in English
    Improved technology scalability
    Advanced infrastructure resources
    Quick turnaround time
    Cost-effective prices
    Secure Network systems to ensure data safety
    Increased market coverage

Outsourcing will help you to focus on your core business operations and thus improve overall productivity. So data mining outsourcing is become wise choice for business. Outsourcing of this services helps businesses to manage their data effectively, which in turn enable them to achieve higher profits.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Why-Outsourcing-Data-Mining-Services?&id=3066061

Thursday, 15 August 2013

Internet Outsourcing Data Entry to Third World Countries

Outsourcing pieces of your company is cost effective. The economic downturn has made companies explore more fiscally conservative options for their company. Internet outsourcing is one of the most popular options to effectively cut costs. Entire departments that cost companies millions a year can be shipped overseas. This allows companies to focus their resources on the crucial elements of their company and not use resources on trivial but necessary matters.

One of the most common departments outsourced is customer service. Maintaining a customer service department requires health benefits, rent, and costly salaries. This creates a huge expense for a company for simple tasks. Customer service departments are being outsourced to India and China for a fraction of the cost. Customer service often requires a straightforward question and answer script. The answers can be given to anyone who has the script. This makes outsourcing customer service effective.

If someone calls for customer support and the customer service representative answers the phone and does not know the answer there is a solution. Calls can be transferred to customer representatives that have extensive product knowledge. This elite group of customer service representatives can be located at corporate headquarters or can be transferred to a trained group of outsourced customer representatives that have knowledge beyond the script. This is one of the easiest ways to cut costs and maintain the value of the company. Over 90% of customer support questions are repeat questions that can be scripted.

Data entry is one the most common outsourced departments. People who do not speak the same language as the origin country can often do data entry tasks. This makes outsourcing data entry extremely cost effective. Numbers and symbols are universal making data entry straightforward in most foreign countries.

All outsourcing tasks can be distributed online. Internet outsourcing is the future to big and small businesses creating cost effective business plans. Placing an order online for electronic equipment has become a normal way of shopping. Placing online orders for work will be common in the decades to come.

Companies worry about outsourcing because they're concerned about quality. Outsourcing has become big business in China, India, third world and developing countries. Projects outsourced are taken very seriously and business management is similar to western societies. The regulations are often more strict than the United States and the work is often held to a higher standard to insure repeat business.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Internet-Outsourcing-Data-Entry-to-Third-World-Countries&id=4617038

Tuesday, 13 August 2013

What is Data Mining? Why Data Mining is Important?

Searching, Collecting, Filtering and Analyzing of data define as data mining. The large amount of information can be retrieved from wide range of form such as different data relationships, patterns or any significant statistical co-relations. Today the advent of computers, large databases and the internet is make easier way to collect millions, billions and even trillions of pieces of data that can be systematically analyzed to help look for relationships and to seek solutions to difficult problems.

The government, private company, large organization and all businesses are looking for large volume of information collection for research and business development. These all collected data can be stored by them to future use. Such kind of information is most important whenever it is require. It will take very much time for searching and find require information from the internet or any other resources.

Here is an overview of data mining services inclusion:

* Market research, product research, survey and analysis
* Collection information about investors, funds and investments
* Forums, blogs and other resources for customer views/opinions
* Scanning large volumes of data
* Information extraction
* Pre-processing of data from the data warehouse
* Meta data extraction
* Web data online mining services
* data online mining research
* Online newspaper and news sources information research
* Excel sheet presentation of data collected from online sources
* Competitor analysis
* data mining books
* Information interpretation
* Updating collected data

After applying the process of data mining, you can easily information extract from filtered information and processing the refining the information. This data process is mainly divided into 3 sections; pre-processing, mining and validation. In short, data online mining is a process of converting data into authentic information.

The most important is that it takes much time to find important information from the data. If you want to grow your business rapidly, you must take quick and accurate decisions to grab timely available opportunities.

Outsourcing Web Research is one of the best data mining outsourcing organizations having more than 17 years of experience in the market research industry. To know more information about our company please contact us.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?What-is-Data-Mining?-Why-Data-Mining-is-Important?&id=3613677

Monday, 12 August 2013

The Need for Specialised Data Mining Techniques for Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is not exactly a new version of the Web, but rather a way to describe a new generation of interactive websites centred on the user. These are websites that offer

interactive information sharing, as well as collaboration - a case in point being wikis and blogs - and is now expanding to other areas as well. These new sites are the result of new technologies and new ideas and are on the cutting edge of Web development. Due to their novelty, they create a rather interesting challenge for data mining.

Data mining is simply a process of finding patterns in masses of data. There is such a vast plethora of information out there on the Web that it is necessary to use data mining tools to make sense of it. Traditional data mining techniques are not very effective when used on these new Web 2.0 sites because the user interface is so varied. Since Web 2.0 sites are created largely by user-supplied content, there is even more data to mine for valuable information. Having said that, the additional freedom in the format ensures that it is much more difficult to sift through the content to find what is usable.The data available is very valuable, so where there is a new platform, there must be new techniques developed for mining the data. The trick is that the data mining methods must themselves be flexible as the sites they are targeting are flexible. In the initial days of the World Wide Web, which was referred to as Web 1.0, data mining programs knew where to look for the desired information. Web 2.0 sites lack structure, meaning there is no single spot for the mining program to target. It must be able to scan and sift through all of the user-generated content to find what is needed. The upside is that there is a lot more data out there, which means more and more accurate results if the data can be properly utilized. The downside is that with all that data, if the selection criteria are not specific enough, the results will be meaningless. Too much of a good thing is definitely a bad thing. Wikis and blogs have been around long enough now that enough research has been carried out to understand them better. This research can now be used, in turn, to devise the best possible data mining methods. New algorithms are being developed that will allow data mining applications to analyse this data and return useful. Another problem is that there are many cul-de-sacs on the internet now, where groups of people share information freely, but only behind walls/barriers that keep it away from the genera results.

The main challenge in developing these algorithms does not lie with finding the data, because there is too much of it. The challenge is filtering out irrelevant data to get to the meaningful one. At this point none of the techniques are perfected. This makes Web 2.0 data mining an exciting and frustrating field, and yet another challenge in the never ending series of technological hurdles that have stemmed from the internet. There are numerous problems to overcome. One is the inability to rely on keywords, which used to be the best method to search. This does not allow for an understanding of context or sentiment associated with the keywords which can drastically vary the meaning of the keyword population. Social networking sites are a good example of this, where you can share information with everyone you know, but it is more difficult for that information to proliferate outside of those circles. This is good in terms of protecting privacy, but it does not add to the collective knowledge base and it can lead to a skewed understanding of public sentiment based on what social structures you have entry into. Attempts to use artificial intelligence have been less than successful because it is not adequately focused in its methodology. Data mining depends on the collection of data and sorting the results to create reports on the individual metrics that are the focus of interest. The size of the data sets are simply too large for traditional computational techniques to be able to tackle them. That is why a new answer needs to be found. Data mining is an important necessity for managing the backhaul of the internet. As Web 2.0 grows exponentially, it is increasingly hard to keep track of everything that is out there and summarize and synthesize it in a useful way. Data mining is necessary for companies to be able to really understand what customers like and want so that they can create products to meet these needs. In the increasingly aggressive global market, companies also need the reports resulting from data mining to remain competitive. If they are unable to keep track of the market and stay abreast of popular trends, they will not survive. The solution has to come from open source with options to scale databases depending on needs. There are companies that are now working on these ideas and are sharing the results with others to further improve them. So, just as open source and collective information sharing of Web 2.0 created these new data mining challenges, it will be the collective effort that solves the problems as well.

It is important to view this as a process of constant improvement, not one where an answer will be absolute for all time. Since its advent, the internet has changed quite significantly as well as the way users interact with it. Data mining will always be a critical part of corporate internet usage and its methods will continue to evolve just as the Web and its content does.

There is a huge incentive for creating better data mining solutions to tackle the complexities of Web 2.0. For this reason, several companies exist just for the purpose of analysing and creating solutions to the data mining problem. They find eager buyers for their applications in companies which are desperate for information on markets and potential customers. The companies in question do not simply want more data, they want better data. This requires a system that can classify and group data, and then make sense of the results.While the data mining process is expensive to start with, it is well worth for a retail company because it provides insight into the market and thus enables quick decisions.The speed at which a company which has insightful information on the marketplace can react to changes, gives it a huge advantage over the competition. Not only can the company react quickly, it is likely to steer itself in the right direction if its information is based on updated data.Advanced data mining will allow companies not only to make snap decisions, but also to plan long range strategies, based on the direction the marketplace is heading. Data mining brings the company closer to its customers. The real winners here, are the companies that have now discovered that they can make a living by improving the existing data mining techniques. They have filled a niche that was only created recently, which no one could have foreseen and have done quite a, good job at it.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Need-for-Specialised-Data-Mining-Techniques-for-Web-2.0&id=7412130

Saturday, 10 August 2013

Data Mining - Critical for Businesses to Tap the Unexplored Market

Knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) is an emerging field and is increasingly gaining importance in today's business. The knowledge discovery process, however, is vast, involving understanding of the business and its requirements, data selection, processing, mining and evaluation or interpretation; it does not have any pre-defined set of rules to go about solving a problem. Among the other stages, the data mining process holds high importance as the task involves identification of new patterns that have not been detected earlier from the dataset. This is relatively a broad concept involving web mining, text mining, online mining etc.

What Data Mining is and what it is not?

The data mining is the process of extracting information, which has been collected, analyzed and prepared, from the dataset and identifying new patterns from that information. At this juncture, it is also important to understand what it is not. The concept is often misunderstood for knowledge gathering, processing, analysis and interpretation/ inference derivation. While these processes are absolutely not data mining, they are very much necessary for its successful implementation.

The 'First-mover Advantage'

One of the major goals of the data mining process is to identify an unknown or rather unexplored segment that had always existed in the business or industry, but was overlooked. The process, when done meticulously using appropriate techniques, could even make way for niche segments providing companies the first-mover advantage. In any industry, the first-mover would bag the maximum benefits and exploit resources besides setting standards for other players to follow. The whole process is thus considered to be a worthy approach to identify unknown segments.

The online knowledge collection and research is the concept involving many complications and, therefore, outsourcing the data mining services often proves viable for large companies that cannot devote time for the task. Outsourcing the web mining services or text mining services would save an organization's productive time which would otherwise be spent in researching.

The data mining algorithms and challenges

Every data mining task follows certain algorithms using statistical methods, cluster analysis or decision tree techniques. However, there is no single universally accepted technique that can be adopted for all. Rather, the process completely depends on the nature of the business, industry and its requirements. Thus, appropriate methods have to be chosen depending upon the business operations.

The whole process is a subset of knowledge discovery process and as such involves different challenges. Analysis and preparation of dataset is very crucial as the well-researched material could assist in extracting only the relevant yet unidentified information useful for the business. Hence, the analysis of the gathered material and preparation of dataset, which also considers industrial standards during the process, would consume more time and labor. Investment is another major challenge in the process as it involves huge cost on deploying professionals with adequate domain knowledge plus knowledge on statistical and technological aspects.

The importance of maintaining a comprehensive database prompted the need for data mining which, in turn, paved way for niche concepts. Though the concept has been present for years now, companies faced with ever growing competition have realized its importance only in the recent years. Besides being relevant, the dataset from where the information is actually extracted also has to be sufficient enough so as to pull out and identify a new dimension. Yet, a standardized approach would result in better understanding and implementation of the newly identified patterns.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Mining---Critical-for-Businesses-to-Tap-the-Unexplored-Market&id=6745886

Thursday, 8 August 2013

Data Mining's Importance in Today's Corporate Industry

A large amount of information is collected normally in business, government departments and research & development organizations. They are typically stored in large information warehouses or bases. For data mining tasks suitable data has to be extracted, linked, cleaned and integrated with external sources. In other words, it is the retrieval of useful information from large masses of information, which is also presented in an analyzed form for specific decision-making.

Data mining is the automated analysis of large information sets to find patterns and trends that might otherwise go undiscovered. It is largely used in several applications such as understanding consumer research marketing, product analysis, demand and supply analysis, telecommunications and so on. Data Mining is based on mathematical algorithm and analytical skills to drive the desired results from the huge database collection.

It can be technically defined as the automated mining of hidden information from large databases for predictive analysis. Web mining requires the use of mathematical algorithms and statistical techniques integrated with software tools.

Data mining includes a number of different technical approaches, such as:

    Clustering
    Data Summarization
    Learning Classification Rules
    Finding Dependency Networks
    Analyzing Changes
    Detecting Anomalies

The software enables users to analyze large databases to provide solutions to business decision problems. Data mining is a technology and not a business solution like statistics. Thus the data mining software provides an idea about the customers that would be intrigued by the new product.

It is available in various forms like text, web, audio & video data mining, pictorial data mining, relational databases, and social networks. Data mining is thus also known as Knowledge Discovery in Databases since it involves searching for implicit information in large databases. The main kinds of data mining software are: clustering and segmentation software, statistical analysis software, text analysis, mining and information retrieval software and visualization software.

Data Mining therefore has arrived on the scene at the very appropriate time, helping these enterprises to achieve a number of complex tasks that would have taken up ages but for the advent of this marvelous new technology.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Minings-Importance-in-Todays-Corporate-Industry&id=2057401

Tuesday, 6 August 2013

Beneficial Data Collection Services

Internet is becoming the biggest source for information gathering. Varieties of search engines are available over the World Wide Web which helps in searching any kind of information easily and quickly. Every business needs relevant data for their decision making for which market research plays a crucial role. One of the services booming very fast is the data collection services. This data mining service helps in gathering relevant data which is hugely needed for your business or personal use.

Traditionally, data collection has been done manually which is not very feasible in case of bulk data requirement. Although people still use manual copying and pasting of data from Web pages or download a complete Web site which is shear wastage of time and effort. Instead, a more reliable and convenient method is automated data collection technique. There is a web scraping techniques that crawls through thousands of web pages for the specified topic and simultaneously incorporates this information into a database, XML file, CSV file, or other custom format for future reference. Few of the most commonly used web data extraction processes are websites which provide you information about the competitor's pricing and featured data; spider is a government portal that helps in extracting the names of citizens for an investigation; websites which have variety of downloadable images.

Aside, there is a more sophisticated method of automated data collection service. Here, you can easily scrape the web site information on daily basis automatically. This method greatly helps you in discovering the latest market trends, customer behavior and the future trends. Few of the major examples of automated data collection solutions are price monitoring information; collection of data of various financial institutions on a daily basis; verification of different reports on a constant basis and use them for taking better and progressive business decisions.

While using these service make sure you use the right procedure. Like when you are retrieving data download it in a spreadsheet so that the analysts can do the comparison and analysis properly. This will also help in getting accurate results in a faster and more refined manner.


Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Beneficial-Data-Collection-Services&id=5879822

Monday, 5 August 2013

Data Entry Services in India Are Getting Famous in the World!

Outsourcing has become the most profitable business in the world. This business is growing in India and other part of the world. These services are getting famous in the world and most of the business owners are saving their lots of money by doing outsourcing to different countries where India comes in top in the outsourcing. By outsourcing your offline and online information entry jobs, your company will maintain properly organized and up-to-date records of the employees and other important stuff. These jobs are usually done in the home environment.

India is very popular in providing the BPO services for their customers. There is large scale of BPO service providers running their business in India. The employees working in these offices are also very competent and trained. Data entry services in India is very popular all around the world because of having the access of BPO experts and the web data extraction experts.

What these BPO services provide you?

There are many business across the globe running on the outsource services, BPO services in India provides the ease of life to the business owner want quick and fast data entry work.

There are many well reputed firms working in India and doing their best to finish and deliver comes punctually. They're professional well equipped with the newest technology and software and more importantly with the professional labor work. They are fully trained and expert in their niche so if a business owner take the services then they get the in time work and quality. When you will select any BPO expert then you will find the following data entry expertise in these professional companies.

1. You will find the handwritten material with the help of experts.
2. Knowledge entry of e-books, directories, image files and etc.
3. You will also get the best services of data processing.
4. Business card knowledge entry
5. Bills and survey services which will help you to Maintain and correct records.
6. Alpha numeric data entry services
7. Data entry free trails.

Thousand of online BPO jobs are also available on the Indian big job portals and other data entry work. These services and work force reduce your workload and will enhance your productivity of your business. Outsourcing the right choice by any business owner because it reduces your total cost and you get the perfect and reliable work. When you approach to any professional service provider firm in India then it reduce the turnaround time and you get the professional data entry services.


Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Entry-Services-in-India-Are-Getting-Famous-in-the-World!&id=4708858

Saturday, 3 August 2013

Outsourcing Data Entry Work

As the business world develops quickly, more and more companies are unable to manage large quantities of data coming fast and furious day in day out. They need to spend time and effort on other important issues related to their businesses instead of wasting all just on data entry.

So what they did next is to outsource those work to specialized companies and freelance individuals who will be keen to take over.

By outsourcing, they would be relieved greatly from the pressure of handling all those workload and focus on immediate tasks like marketing strategies, promotion, customer follow-up and support.

Moreover, outsourcing is cheaper and less time consuming from conventional recruitment which they ended up spending more money and time teaching the newcomers and making sure they understand quickly.

It is also the best option for all business needs requiring advanced pool of talent. Such as experienced and skilled professionals who would have no problem handling all related tasks entrusted by companies.

Now that full training is provided by companies, the client companies can be relieved from of training the employees again and again just to make sure they understand completely before entrusting the work to them.

Outsourcing data entry work also helps them to track down and update all incoming latest data 24 hours a day and 365 days a year on autopilot. Because of this, there is no limit as to how much work the client companies can outsource so long as they have the affordability and trust whoever they outsource to do a great job.

The most common work outsourced so far are bills, legal documents, invoices, manuals, medical billing, payroll, research reports, surveys, tax forms etc.

Most data processing companies have safety measures such as double keying process which involves rekeying data into different file formats. After which, the files are compared electronically with each other to provide accurate results to clients.

Henceforth selecting a legitimate company for outsourcing would help the companies get relief from most of the data processing problems.

Some companies are quite versatile in data processing and are more than willing to help clients in handling their projects irregardless of race and language.

Speaking of which, it is one of the main reasons for outsourcing being popular among clients to those companies. It also enables them to get the necessary output in their desired online format like CD-R, CD-RW, FTP just to name a few.

Apart from versatility, they have up-to-date technologies based on the current trends in relevant industry. These will get all the outsourced work accomplished quickly, flawlessly and easily.

As of today, outsourcing to developing countries is pretty common. This helps clients achieve their desired output for comparative lesser amount.

Just because those countries are developing does not mean the people are low standard in qualities. They are highly committed and well-trained to perform just as well as those in developed countries. The only difference is they are willing to accept lower rates and still deliver high quality work.

Overall, choosing a reliable company to outsource your work is a perfect solution to cut costs, get things done faster and free up your time on other things.


Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Outsourcing-Data-Entry-Work&id=5376156

Thursday, 1 August 2013

Business Intelligence Data Mining

Data mining can be technically defined as the automated extraction of hidden information from large databases for predictive analysis. In other words, it is the retrieval of useful information from large masses of data, which is also presented in an analyzed form for specific decision-making.

Data mining requires the use of mathematical algorithms and statistical techniques integrated with software tools. The final product is an easy-to-use software package that can be used even by non-mathematicians to effectively analyze the data they have. Data Mining is used in several applications like market research, consumer behavior, direct marketing, bioinformatics, genetics, text analysis, fraud detection, web site personalization, e-commerce, healthcare, customer relationship management, financial services and telecommunications.

Business intelligence data mining is used in market research, industry research, and for competitor analysis. It has applications in major industries like direct marketing, e-commerce, customer relationship management, healthcare, the oil and gas industry, scientific tests, genetics, telecommunications, financial services and utilities. BI uses various technologies like data mining, scorecarding, data warehouses, text mining, decision support systems, executive information systems, management information systems and geographic information systems for analyzing useful information for business decision making.

Business intelligence is a broader arena of decision-making that uses data mining as one of the tools. In fact, the use of data mining in BI makes the data more relevant in application. There are several kinds of data mining: text mining, web mining, social networks data mining, relational databases, pictorial data mining, audio data mining and video data mining, that are all used in business intelligence applications.

Some data mining tools used in BI are: decision trees, information gain, probability, probability density functions, Gaussians, maximum likelihood estimation, Gaussian Baves classification, cross-validation, neural networks, instance-based learning /case-based/ memory-based/non-parametric, regression algorithms, Bayesian networks, Gaussian mixture models, K-means and hierarchical clustering, Markov models and so on.


Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Business-Intelligence-Data-Mining&id=196648

Data Extraction Software Explained in Plain English

Data Extraction Software is designed to automatically collect data from web pages. A lot of money can be made with Data Extraction Software, but there are two types of program - custom made and typical.

Custom made solutions are designed by developers to extract from one particular source and they can't automatically adjust to another. So for example, if we are to create a custom-build data extraction program for website A, it won't work for website B, because they have different structures. Such custom made solutions cost more money than the standard ones, but they are designed for more complicated and unique situations.

Every data extraction program is based on an algorithm that has to be programmed in such a way that it will collect all the needed data from a given website. The reason why data extraction is so popular is that it saves on manual labor which can become expensive when outsourced. Data extraction software automates repetitive operations. For example, if you want to extract just the emails of every user in a given website, then you will have to pay a person to repeat the same steps over and over again like a robot. Those steps will most likely include clicking on the same place, then copying to the clipboard a piece of data that always resides on the same place on the screen.

Data extraction software is based on certain constants. By constants, I mean certain facts about a given program that do not change, no matter what. This is perhaps the only drawback of this type of software. But for the time being, it's the only way. The other way is to use artificial intelligence and make software programs think and make decisions like humans. They would have to adapt to new systems and it's almost unthinkable to consider such complicated solutions unless you are working on a very large scale.

The Bottom line here is that data extraction software is able to automate cycled operations that are otherwise expensive if handled by humans. Although the initial investment of money and time might seem expensive, it's definitely worth it in the long run, because your customized software will do the job in much less time, without the need for any human intervention.

So, if you are working on any task on the Internet, and you feel that task could be automated, then data extraction software maybe the solution you have been looking for.


Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Extraction-Software-Explained-in-Plain-English&id=1477227