Data Science

Turning data into game-changing insight

Businesses, governments, consumers – the world has never produced and collected as much information as it does now.

All of this means a wealth of new opportunities for businesses, regulators, government and customers. But while data can lead to opportunity, it takes experience and expertise to turn it into insight. And our data scientists have both.

Unlocking the value of data

We offer unique insights to our clients by combining creative economic thinking with an ability to interpret large amounts of data.

Our capabilities in processing and analysing information enable us to provide management teams, governments and competition authorities with convincing, evidence-based advice.

We do this in three ways:

  • Identifying patterns in data and visualising them
  • Explaining causal relationships and modelling future outcomes
  • Guiding clients on how to think strategically about their data
Identify and visualise

We use cutting-edge statistical techniques to identify patterns in large datasets. We then apply economic expertise to understand what drives those patterns.

And our data visualisations bring to life what our analysis means for our clients, helping them to better understand their customers’ behaviour and the markets they operate in.

Recent examples of our work include mapping the geographical spread of vulnerable customers in Britain’s energy market, helping a large bank to understand credit risk across its customer base and measuring local competition in the UK and Thailand grocery market in the context of a merger.

We offer:

  • Exploratory data analysis in R and Python to find the story among the data
  • Powerful visualisations, including interactive dashboards, to understand what-if scenarios
  • Geospatial data analysis to understand patterns and behaviours that vary according to geographical location
  • Web scraping to collect richer datasets
Explain and predict

Clients will know what worked in the past, but they also need to know the reasons why, and what is likely to happen in the future. We use cutting-edge modelling techniques to explain the causes of past events and to forecast future results.

Using a wide range of statistical methods and programs, we provide our clients with reliable, robust answers to complex questions. Our models aren’t “black boxes”: using our knowledge of how markets work, we can develop and interpret models that explain what is going on in intuitive terms.

Our work is used in competition cases, to evaluate the impact of policy interventions, and by commercial clients to sharpen their business strategies.

We offer:

  • Econometric modelling in Stata and R, to understand causal relationships
  • Customised machine learning models for predictions
  • Solving large scale optimisation problems and using agent-based modelling to simulate market outcomes and explore firms’ strategies.
Using data strategically

We advise clients on how to develop and implement their data strategies.

Our expertise has helped our commercial clients find the best ways to collect and manage their data, and enabled them to ask the right questions of it at the right times.

We help our clients by:

  • Identifying and quantifying the key sources of value from their data
  • Developing strategic objectives to link business value to data processes 
  • Designing data capture journeys using behavioural economics
  • Synthesising data to enhance top-level management information