SMART Award
In 1999 TBR won a prestigious SMART Award from the Government to research the feasibility of developing a product that could analyse the UK firm population. The aim of the project was to:
"test the feasibility of creating a computer based, empirically derived product, founded upon adequate and reliable business data. The product would enable customers to measure, analyse, forecast and compare the performance of products and services, markets, sectors, sub sectors and local and regional geographies".
To develop this product we had to first establish the possibility of transforming and manipulating a sample of UK businesses (the TBR database) into one that represents the whole UK firm population. The end result would be a set of processes to transform this sample into a census of the 3.7 million firms that are estimated to make up the UK firm population.
The project had the following main components:
- Filling in gaps: Our database has a number of missing values (e.g. sales and employment figures for individual firms). The SMART Award researched methods to fill these gaps with estimated values.
- Grossing to known samples: Our database contains 1.7 million firms. There are approximately 3.7 million UK firms. Methods of 'grossing up' these firms were developed, taking account of sectoral and geographical differences.
- Reclassification: The present UK SIC system is outdated and insufficiently detailed. We developed a process that takes account of the textual line of business description (e.g. "manufacturer of shoes") and the SIC code and translates it into a 6-digit 2002 NAICS (North American Industrial Classification System) code. This will enable more detailed analysis of UK sectors.
- Forecasting: We developed methods that can forecast employment and sales figures for individual firms, and for broader groups (sectors and geographies) for the short term future.
We are currently investigating ways to move forward with the intelligence developed in order to release a product that will be founded on this data.
For more details of the projects or product, please e-mail Steve Mayes.
