Statistical Consultant

Statistics and data analysis are fast becoming the norm for conducting internal audits and performance reviews. In certain industry domains such as marketing, research, financial services and medical or clinical research, statistics are nearly indispensible. This significance stems from the immense power of statistics in analyzing data and in achieving important growth and efficiency objectives. We all know how critical it is for businesses and researchers alike to achieve robust, accurate results that can lead to meaningful results, interpretations and business decisions. The problem lies in the fact that in many cases, the necessary skills to harness the power of statistics are simply not available or accessible. This is where a statistical consultant can come in handy.

A statistical consultant can play a pivotal role in a research project as statistical consultants are trained to produce high quality results. A statistical consultant is a professional who provides statistical tools and advice, and who has the know-how to implement these tools in a project. Ideally, a statistical consultant should be able to step into diverse settings, evaluate the scenario and make recommendations as to which methods are most suitable for data collection, analysis and interpretation of results. Depending on the need, a statistical consultant may offer an array of services to suit different budgets and goals, ranging from hundreds, to thousands, to a few million or more.

The application of a statistical consultant is frequently within an academic environment such as a university. More importantly, a statistical consultant is valuable on all levels of academia. In other words, it is not just with major research projects that statistical consultants are involved. Rather, statistical consultants are invaluable on a micro level as well. In such a setting, a statistical consultant is hired with the purpose of helping graduate students and faculty members with statistical issues related to their research. This encompasses subjects outside the normal statistics-related subjects as there are other subjects that may, in whole or part, involve statistical analysis. Besides lending a helping hand to students and faculty members, a statistical consultant can also provide consultation on statistical methodologies and research design. They can even help in writing up data analysis plans and results of statistical analysis, as well as prepare for theses presentations and proposals.

A professional statistical consultant can also provide immense support for businesses by helping them take charge of their internal data flow. Thus, a statistical consultant can extract meaningful information from internal data and can thereby help a business be more successful. Overall, be it an academic, research or business exercise, the key benefits of using a statistical consultant is the ability to have a high level of skill in a critical field, on an ad-hoc basis. In short, it is like having an expert come in and do the job needed, without having to worry about payroll or other issues.

Hiring a statistical consultant should be a well thought-out business decision, rather than a “make-up” decision to appease shareholders or upper management. With a sound plan and real commitment with overall buy-in, a statistical consultant can do wonders. Of course, a caveat is that the statistical consultant must actually fit the bill in terms of skills, personality and abilities. The first step is to choose a consultant who is professional, responsive and sensitive to your needs and who is able to communicate effectively. Of course, skills and knowledge are a must, in addition to experience, which can never be too great. He or she must listen and understand your problem effectively and devise a strategy that not only works, but works in a desirable manner without too much collateral damage. In other words, it is important to hire someone who understands both the quantitative and the qualitative aspects of business or academia—one who is able to deliver results while seeing the larger picture of what you want to achieve and how exactly, you want to achieve it.

All in all, a statistical consultant can be an excellent asset for projects involving statistical analysis and design. Whether it is a small scale business or a very large one, statistical consultants can help provide the necessary inputs and expertise to take your business to the next level or land that million dollar patent. It is important to remember, however, that it is not a panacea, and a statistical consultant can only provide the tools and guidance. The actions or steps still have to be implemented and this goes to underline the importance of commitment. In an academic setting, the right statistical consultant will provide the necessary guidance and advice, but never attempt to sideline ethics and standards of academic honesty. Thus, your work will be your work, though your final outcome will have been both expedited and made easier with the invaluable help, guidance and support of a statistical consultant.

Statistical Consulting Service

This is the era of stiff commercial competition among organizations, which must constantly strive to remain on top or fizzle out as a has-been. Today, organizations are using every available means to topple other organizations out of the business. Evaluating internal performance and efficiency can benefit greatly from the use of statistical analysis to identify key areas of development along with success factors. In addition, academics can employ a statistical consulting service to support their academic pursuits including theses, dissertations, term papers and much more. Typically the ideal statistics consulting service is one that is open with communication and provides innovative ideas on how to improve performance. The focus should be not on measurement, but also on interpretation.

In universities, a statistics consulting service can help tremendously in improving the output from research activities. Universities and colleges act as the source of new knowledge in our society and for these universities, the vast array of research projects can sometimes become overwhelming, especially when managing the projects on strict schedules and budgets is required. Frequently, graduate students hire a statistical consulting service to help them interpret the data that they have collected for theses and dissertations either because they don’t have time to do so or they just don’t have the expertise that they need to get a good grade. In addition, a number of students outside the area of statistics, say in medicine, are preparing theses or dissertations that require statistical analysis of large amounts of data. Frequently, such students have no clue as to what methods to use to answer their research questions, much less actually carry them out.

However, be it telecommunications, financial services, research or marketing, nearly every entity can benefit from a statistics consulting service as it helps bring in not only expertise, but also a real world perspective as well as the benefit of an outsider’s bias-free opinion. There may be a generic statistics consulting service or a specialized one. The suitability of one versus the other depends on the needs of the specific project. For instance, a statistics consulting service may specialize in solutions for financial services. This may be due to the team’s education orientation or experience, or simply their core area of expertise. At other times, a statistics consulting service will be more generic, and able to provide holistic solutions to most industry verticals.

It is pretty much essential that the statistics consulting service in question must have required knowledge and expertise in various statistical methodologies and packages. At the same time, the statistics consulting service must exhibit a strong offering in terms of quantitative aspects such as professionalism, attention to detail, the ability to listen to and understand client requirements in detail and so on.

Producing output is one thing, converting it into meaningful decisions another. Be it a student or a CEO of a large corporation, the key difference between an average and great statistics consulting service is the ability to make sense out of large amounts of data.

In choosing a statistics consulting service, emphasize open exchange of information. Besides the requisite qualifications of the team, including atleast one Ph.D qualified statistician, the team members must possess the requisite knowledge and experience in dealing with real world problems. For research clients, designing experiments, carrying out surveys, data cleansing are also critical components. Particularly at the academic level, it is important to ensure that the students’ original intention is kept intact and the individual flavor of the dissertation is maintained.

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Statistical Analysis Help

Statistical analysis help can go a long way in analyzing complex statistical problems faced by students, researchers and members of the business community. For example, a good statistical analyst can understand the underlying research problem, create a meaningful survey, and analyze the results to generate useful information.

Statistical analysis is often used in clinical research, market research and other business organization to evaluate the business environment based on surveys, statistics and empirical evidence. At the university level, statistical analysis is often used in solving business problems, consulting projects, term papers, theses and dissertations. Statistical analysis help can aid not only in controlling costs in a business environment, but also making the research or academic exercise accurate and meaningful, particularly for those not skilled in statistics.

There are several applications of statistical analysis in nearly every aspect of life. In business, risk assessment, data analysis, data mining and decision support can all be carried out using statistics. A general understanding of statistics should be present in every team member in order to have a strong understanding of business efficiency and quality metrics. In the academic context, statistical analysis help can aid in the development of interesting business ideas and propositions, with empirical validity. There are often cases where a term paper involves writing on a subject which requires statistical validity- that’s where statistical analysis help can come in handy.

In the research setting, be it in a university or a large pharma or biotech firm, statistical analysis can be applied to developing more robust models for clinical subjects and/or creating a more reliable solution for any disease or ailment. The case for statistical analysis help is similar to the case for a management consultant- the enterprise or student may be well versed in the subject matter but may not always have the benefit of the outsider view, which a consultant has. Statistical analysis can provide that benefit.

Particularly where large amounts of internal data need to be analyzed, external assistance with statistical analysis can aid in unbiased and critical evaluation of metrics that can aid better business decisions and essentially create a more efficient platform for operations. These decisions can go a long way in enhancing the growth rate of an organization in the long run.

Statistical analysis help can be obtained from experts including professors, business consultants, researchers and specialized statistical consultants. The selection of the specific expert should be based on your needs and budget, along with the qualifications of the respective firm or professional that you select. In addition, it’s important to emphasize the qualitative aspect of the relationship in terms of whether or not there is a style and ideological fit between the student or researcher and the statistical consultant. For instance, there are people who would like to completely write a dissertation themselves, while others are simply looking for support in the form of guidance or corrective advice. A qualified consultant will be able to understand and fulfil the specific needs of the client rather than enforce their cookie-cutter based products on them.

Nearly everyone today requires statistical analysis help or consulting, even if it’s a highly qualified statistician. The reason is not shortage of skills or lack of understanding. The simplest way to think about it is a more efficient use of available time and resources. For instance, a student who works full time to pay for school, may not have enough time to devote to actually doing the SPSS tasks required to complete the analysis. In addition, there may be some problem areas that even a Ph.D level candidate may need a second opinion on.

Thus, statistical analysis help doesn’t have to mean that a person in need of such help is poorly qualified or doesn’t know enough to do their job themselves. Often, it’s a question of efficiency and accuracy in the larger interest of which, it makes sense to obtain external help. Given the right source, it can often mean the same thing as asking a friend for help.

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Statistical Consulting

A business organization looking to improve its profitability through detailed internal evaluation should seriously consider availing the services of a statistical consulting firm. Depending upon the specific industry in question, statistical consulting firms can add tremendous value and help an organization outrun existing standards of performance measured by revenues and profits. For instance, marketing managers may want to hire the expertise of statistical consulting firms in order to obtain comprehensible survey results for the purpose of launching new products. Not only that, statistical consulting firms can aid in the understanding of a company’s customer base and more effectively service the needs of existing customers. They often say in business circles that retaining a customer is much cheaper than obtaining a new one.

In a nutshell, statistical consulting firms provide important statistical and research advice to clients in a wide range of industry domains including, but not limited to marketing, finance, information technology, manufacturing, human resources, telecommunications. Apart from the business applications, statistical consulting firms can be employed by university level researchers and scholars in their quest for new knowledge and understanding and processing large amounts of empirical data.

In choosing the right statistical consulting firm, it is important to remember a few key points which will help in making sure that the costs and benefits of hiring statistical consulting firm is balanced and justified:

1. Sound need assessment: be it a university, research activity or business environment, the need for a statistical consulting firm must be evaluated and clearly specified. There should be a value proposition which ensures that the consultant will not be used as just eye wash, rather as a tool for business improvement. In addition to this, management buy-in is critical, without which the recommendations, even when they are critical, will turn out to be a formality and lead to nothing but business expenses.

2. Skills assessment: there are generic statistical consulting firms and specialized statistical consulting firms which are either focused on a specific industry domain such as financial services, or provide a more macro-view consulting service. In many cases, generic statistical consulting firms will get the job done when it comes to business process improvement, efficiency audits, etc. however, there may be a need in some cases, where specialized statistical consulting firms need to be brought in to conduct a detailed analysis of a specific business process.

3. Soft skills: it’s important that apart from sheer qualifications and statistical skills, the consultant display a strong portfolio of soft skills and be sensitive to the various qualitative aspects of business, such as employee morale, team dynamic and other such metrics which form a critical part of any business improvement initiative. It is important to ensure that apart from IQ, statistical consulting firms and their personnel possess strong EQ as well, to be able to create meaningful interpretations from business data.

Statistical consulting firms are typically considered the subject matter of corporations and profit oriented entities. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Statistical consulting firms are frequently deployed in research scenarios such as economic or socio-economic research, medicine or biotechnology (even not for profit firms), military operations and other government initiatives. Even at the university level, statistical consulting firms are frequently found providing their expertise and sharing knowledge with scholars and experts alike.

In an academic setting, statistical consulting firms are used by research professionals in high end research projects involving many millions of dollars, due to the sheer complexity and size of the project. The objective of such engagement is, in addition to ensuring validity and accuracy, developing and deploying new innovative means of solving critical and non-standard problems. To say then, that statistical consulting firms are another branch of statistical academics would be at the very least, inaccurate. Statistics is only one aspect of statistical consulting firms, with the others being exposure to business and/or academic environments and problems, having a strong aptitude for solving problems and a knack for innovation.

The scope of activities for statistical consulting firms can range from survey and questionnaire design, research and experiment design to making recommendations on a macro level for business and academic purposes. In the middle, they also provide data analysis services as well as guidance for those activities. Finally, one must remember that statistical consulting firms don’t have to cost the earth. The keyword is balance- between costs and perceived benefits.

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