Thursday, 11 July 2013

Usefulness of Web Scraping Services

For any business or organization, surveys and market research play important roles in the strategic decision-making process. Data extraction and web scraping techniques are important tools that find relevant data and information for your personal or business use. Many companies employ people to copy-paste data manually from the web pages. This process is very reliable but very costly as it results to time wastage and effort. This is so because the data collected is less compared to the resources spent and time taken to gather such data.

Nowadays, various data mining companies have developed effective web scraping techniques that can crawl over thousands of websites and their pages to harvest particular information. The information extracted is then stored into a CSV file, database, XML file, or any other source with the required format. After the data has been collected and stored, data mining process can be used to extract the hidden patterns and trends contained in the data. By understanding the correlations and patterns in the data; policies can be formulated and thereby aiding the decision-making process. The information can also be stored for future reference.

The following are some of the common examples of data extraction process:

• Scrap through a government portal in order to extract the names of the citizens who are reliable for a given survey.
• Scraping competitor websites for feature data and product pricing
• Using web scraping to download videos and images for stock photography site or for website design

Automated Data Collection
It is important to note that web scraping process allows a company to monitor the website data changes over a given time frame. It also collects the data on a routine basis regularly. Automated data collection techniques are quite important as they help companies to discover customer trends and market trends. By determining market trends, it is possible to understand the customer behavior and predict the likelihood of how the data will change.

The following are some of the examples of the automated data collection:

• Monitoring price information for the particular stocks on hourly basis
• Collecting mortgage rates from the various financial institutions on the daily basis
• Checking on weather reports on regular basis as required

By using web scraping services it is possible to extract any data that is related to your business. The data can then be downloaded into a spreadsheet or a database for it to be analyzed and compared. Storing the data in a database or in a required format makes it easier for interpretation and understanding of the correlations and for identification of the hidden patterns.

Through web scraping it is possible to get quicker and accurate results and thus saving many resources in terms of money and time. With data extraction services, it is possible to fetch information about pricing, mailing, database, profile data, and competitors data on a consistent basis. With the emergence of professional data mining companies outsourcing your services will greatly reduce your costs and at the same time you are assured of high quality services.


Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Usefulness-of-Web-Scraping-Services&id=7181014

Wednesday, 10 July 2013

Data Mining and Financial Data Analysis

Most marketers understand the value of collecting financial data, but also realize the challenges of leveraging this knowledge to create intelligent, proactive pathways back to the customer. Data mining - technologies and techniques for recognizing and tracking patterns within data - helps businesses sift through layers of seemingly unrelated data for meaningful relationships, where they can anticipate, rather than simply react to, customer needs as well as financial need. In this accessible introduction, we provides a business and technological overview of data mining and outlines how, along with sound business processes and complementary technologies, data mining can reinforce and redefine for financial analysis.

Objective:

1. The main objective of mining techniques is to discuss how customized data mining tools should be developed for financial data analysis.

2. Usage pattern, in terms of the purpose can be categories as per the need for financial analysis.

3. Develop a tool for financial analysis through data mining techniques.

Data mining:

Data mining is the procedure for extracting or mining knowledge for the large quantity of data or we can say data mining is "knowledge mining for data" or also we can say Knowledge Discovery in Database (KDD). Means data mining is : data collection , database creation, data management, data analysis and understanding.

There are some steps in the process of knowledge discovery in database, such as

1. Data cleaning. (To remove nose and inconsistent data)

2. Data integration. (Where multiple data source may be combined.)

3. Data selection. (Where data relevant to the analysis task are retrieved from the database.)

4. Data transformation. (Where data are transformed or consolidated into forms appropriate for mining by performing summary or aggregation operations, for instance)

5. Data mining. (An essential process where intelligent methods are applied in order to extract data patterns.)

6. Pattern evaluation. (To identify the truly interesting patterns representing knowledge based on some interesting measures.)

7. Knowledge presentation.(Where visualization and knowledge representation techniques are used to present the mined knowledge to the user.)

Data Warehouse:

A data warehouse is a repository of information collected from multiple sources, stored under a unified schema and which usually resides at a single site.

Text:

Most of the banks and financial institutions offer a wide verity of banking services such as checking, savings, business and individual customer transactions, credit and investment services like mutual funds etc. Some also offer insurance services and stock investment services.

There are different types of analysis available, but in this case we want to give one analysis known as "Evolution Analysis".

Data evolution analysis is used for the object whose behavior changes over time. Although this may include characterization, discrimination, association, classification, or clustering of time related data, means we can say this evolution analysis is done through the time series data analysis, sequence or periodicity pattern matching and similarity based data analysis.

Data collect from banking and financial sectors are often relatively complete, reliable and high quality, which gives the facility for analysis and data mining. Here we discuss few cases such as,

Eg, 1. Suppose we have stock market data of the last few years available. And we would like to invest in shares of best companies. A data mining study of stock exchange data may identify stock evolution regularities for overall stocks and for the stocks of particular companies. Such regularities may help predict future trends in stock market prices, contributing our decision making regarding stock investments.

Eg, 2. One may like to view the debt and revenue change by month, by region and by other factors along with minimum, maximum, total, average, and other statistical information. Data ware houses, give the facility for comparative analysis and outlier analysis all are play important roles in financial data analysis and mining.

Eg, 3. Loan payment prediction and customer credit analysis are critical to the business of the bank. There are many factors can strongly influence loan payment performance and customer credit rating. Data mining may help identify important factors and eliminate irrelevant one.

Factors related to the risk of loan payments like term of the loan, debt ratio, payment to income ratio, credit history and many more. The banks than decide whose profile shows relatively low risks according to the critical factor analysis.

We can perform the task faster and create a more sophisticated presentation with financial analysis software. These products condense complex data analyses into easy-to-understand graphic presentations. And there's a bonus: Such software can vault our practice to a more advanced business consulting level and help we attract new clients.

To help us find a program that best fits our needs-and our budget-we examined some of the leading packages that represent, by vendors' estimates, more than 90% of the market. Although all the packages are marketed as financial analysis software, they don't all perform every function needed for full-spectrum analyses. It should allow us to provide a unique service to clients.

The Products:

ACCPAC CFO (Comprehensive Financial Optimizer) is designed for small and medium-size enterprises and can help make business-planning decisions by modeling the impact of various options. This is accomplished by demonstrating the what-if outcomes of small changes. A roll forward feature prepares budgets or forecast reports in minutes. The program also generates a financial scorecard of key financial information and indicators.

Customized Financial Analysis by BizBench provides financial benchmarking to determine how a company compares to others in its industry by using the Risk Management Association (RMA) database. It also highlights key ratios that need improvement and year-to-year trend analysis. A unique function, Back Calculation, calculates the profit targets or the appropriate asset base to support existing sales and profitability. Its DuPont Model Analysis demonstrates how each ratio affects return on equity.

Financial Analysis CS reviews and compares a client's financial position with business peers or industry standards. It also can compare multiple locations of a single business to determine which are most profitable. Users who subscribe to the RMA option can integrate with Financial Analysis CS, which then lets them provide aggregated financial indicators of peers or industry standards, showing clients how their businesses compare.

iLumen regularly collects a client's financial information to provide ongoing analysis. It also provides benchmarking information, comparing the client's financial performance with industry peers. The system is Web-based and can monitor a client's performance on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis. The network can upload a trial balance file directly from any accounting software program and provide charts, graphs and ratios that demonstrate a company's performance for the period. Analysis tools are viewed through customized dashboards.

PlanGuru by New Horizon Technologies can generate client-ready integrated balance sheets, income statements and cash-flow statements. The program includes tools for analyzing data, making projections, forecasting and budgeting. It also supports multiple resulting scenarios. The system can calculate up to 21 financial ratios as well as the breakeven point. PlanGuru uses a spreadsheet-style interface and wizards that guide users through data entry. It can import from Excel, QuickBooks, Peachtree and plain text files. It comes in professional and consultant editions. An add-on, called the Business Analyzer, calculates benchmarks.

ProfitCents by Sageworks is Web-based, so it requires no software or updates. It integrates with QuickBooks, CCH, Caseware, Creative Solutions and Best Software applications. It also provides a wide variety of businesses analyses for nonprofits and sole proprietorships. The company offers free consulting, training and customer support. It's also available in Spanish.

ProfitSystem fx Profit Driver by CCH Tax and Accounting provides a wide range of financial diagnostics and analytics. It provides data in spreadsheet form and can calculate benchmarking against industry standards. The program can track up to 40 periods.


Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Mining-and-Financial-Data-Analysis&id=2752017

Tuesday, 9 July 2013

Data Mining vs Screen-Scraping

Data mining isn't screen-scraping. I know that some people in the room may disagree with that statement, but they're actually two almost completely different concepts.

In a nutshell, you might state it this way: screen-scraping allows you to get information, where data mining allows you to analyze information. That's a pretty big simplification, so I'll elaborate a bit.

The term "screen-scraping" comes from the old mainframe terminal days where people worked on computers with green and black screens containing only text. Screen-scraping was used to extract characters from the screens so that they could be analyzed. Fast-forwarding to the web world of today, screen-scraping now most commonly refers to extracting information from web sites. That is, computer programs can "crawl" or "spider" through web sites, pulling out data. People often do this to build things like comparison shopping engines, archive web pages, or simply download text to a spreadsheet so that it can be filtered and analyzed.

Data mining, on the other hand, is defined by Wikipedia as the "practice of automatically searching large stores of data for patterns." In other words, you already have the data, and you're now analyzing it to learn useful things about it. Data mining often involves lots of complex algorithms based on statistical methods. It has nothing to do with how you got the data in the first place. In data mining you only care about analyzing what's already there.

The difficulty is that people who don't know the term "screen-scraping" will try Googling for anything that resembles it. We include a number of these terms on our web site to help such folks; for example, we created pages entitled Text Data Mining, Automated Data Collection, Web Site Data Extraction, and even Web Site Ripper (I suppose "scraping" is sort of like "ripping"). So it presents a bit of a problem-we don't necessarily want to perpetuate a misconception (i.e., screen-scraping = data mining), but we also have to use terminology that people will actually use.


Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Mining-vs-Screen-Scraping&id=146813

Monday, 8 July 2013

Outsourcing Data Entry to a Virtual Assistant

Data entry can be one of the most tedious and time consuming jobs of a business. One of the only jobs that is more annoying and time consuming is finding someone willing to do data entry for you. Where do you look for people to do this kind of work? First let's look at the different types of data entry. Not every business has the same type of data entry needed, but a database is always an essential for lifetime clients.

Mailing lists
People with a big contact list need that turned into a database that can be used to send widespread emails. This is usually done with an excel spreadsheet, but there are other forms that can be used for making such a list. It depends on the size of the business and the contacts it receives, but the average time it takes to fill something like this out on a month's worth of contacts is between four and eight hours. That's not a lot, but there is a multitude of things you would rather be doing than inputting names into a list.

System and business management
Bookkeeping is always professionally done by the business owner and its managers. But during tax season this seemingly simple tasks start to look like a mountain of paperwork that they just don't have time to do while they still have a business to run. There is a difference between a C.P. A. certified tax preparer, and someone who organized your lists of employees. List preps simply put your life on auto stream and keep your papers running smoothly. What is the best part? People such as this can work year-round doing the bookkeeping that you're too busy to do.

Lifetime clients
The people you meet are not likely to leave your mind quickly. The time it takes to build the relationship, create partners, and move forward in business is something well earned. In return for their efforts, you would like to let them know what your next big plan is, and how they can be a part of it. You want to streamline the process so you can focus on your work. How does this work? Well, you hire someone to input their emails, names, and phone numbers into a list, and take it from there. This is simple, and you can continue to use and add to the list as you go along. There is no way to justify not doing this.

Growing businesses need more automated systems now than ever before. Outsourcing work has been the newest and best solution for the last five years. Why stop now? Keeping things cost efficient is the goal, so use your knowledge and research skills to see what the best option for you is. Keep in mind what is and isn't a good idea to outsource.


Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Outsourcing-Data-Entry-to-a-Virtual-Assistant&id=7758078

Saturday, 6 July 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

Wednesday, 3 July 2013

Compensation to Outsource Data Entry Work

The data input is used to transform data into information. They entered data into the computer, the keyboard entry, scanning and voice recognition includes. The volume and the critical services in enterprise and desktop world needs more and more in this electronic age has become. It is an important task for any successful company in the long run.

Data entry is the center of every business and even though it may seem easier to manage and manipulate it many processes that must be addressed systematically. It is a characteristic of such an undertaking should be properly handled to make your business a successful endeavor. These services cover most business and professional activities, including:

* Online Entry

* Out of entry

* Input Image

* Document Input

* Book Entry

* Entry Insurance Claim

* Catalog Entry

* The text and numeric input

* Application forms invoice

* Documents Legal entry

* Reports Corporate entry

Data entry work is very long and tiring, so the best option is therefore to support the provision of outsourcing companies. In the competitive world of today, all companies have regularly updated information and data certainly help advance your competitor. In today's market, solutions capture data for different types of businesses are at very competitive prices. A growing number of companies turn to outsourcing services.

Advantages of Data Entry Outsourcing:

* So that you can concentrate on your core business

* It lowers the capital costs of infrastructure

* Competitive rates are as low as 60%

* Removal of management headache

* Improved employee satisfaction with higher value jobs

* Use the latest standards and new technologies

* Fast turnaround and high quality

* A better use of available resources in the competitive world

* High-speed and low-cost communication

* Line of data from anywhere

Data Entry Services provided by outsourcing companies offer various services under this. No matter what kind of services you want, everything is through this outsourcing services enable companies to support. Increase your business by outsourcing work. If you are looking for data entry specialists in subcontract work then we will certainly meet your needs.


Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Compensation-to-Outsource-Data-Entry-Work&id=3486446

Monday, 1 July 2013

Data Entry and Benefits of Data Entry Outsourcing for Business

Data Entry is a procedure for handling, processing and entering of data or information into the computer. Data or information is a found new ways for business. Without data or information, company cannot go ahead and become successful. Data is most essential for any type of organizations of various industry verticals like medical, insurance, banking, commercial, financial, educational, social, etc. Data entry is the best option for proper management of information and helpful to keep the business running smoothly and effectively. It becomes very easy, with the help of outsourcing.

In present competitive market, there are large number of outsourcing company available and providing customized data entry solution as business need at very reasonable rate. Outsourcing companies are providing wide range of business and professional services like online and offline entry, document and image processing, image entry, insurance claim entry, book typing, medical record entry, report copy typing, copy typing etc.

Outsourcing data entry has a large list of benefits for business some of few are mentioned below:

All in one: Outsourcing company have an ideal collection of allied services, which include, data conversion, PDF conversion, word conversion, OCR clean up, PDF to DOC conversion, data processing, and much more.

Best services: All outsourcing companies have vast experience and highly qualified professionals with latest technologies to deliver proper result quickly. To meet accurate output for your business they developed advanced infrastructure with reliable technological instruments, security systems etc.

Save cost and resources: Outsourcing is very helpful to save up to half and cost behind total operations. You can lower down your capital cost behind in house process. By outsourcing you can save your resources and spend it into further business productivity.

Maximized ROI: Outsourcing brings an ideal deal to the companies for maximize return of investment. In this way, the companies can reduce the expenditure of resources and increase the efficiency and productivity. As the result of which, a clear result with high profits.

I think that all above benefits are enough for data entry outsourcing. But it must require outsourcing a genuine company.


Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Entry-and-Benefits-of-Data-Entry-Outsourcing-for-Business&id=5383079