There is much uncertainty in the business world, so when it comes to making business decisions, the challenge is in measuring and balancing all the risks involved and adequately factoring in how changes in circumstance might influence the decision. Understanding variability and risk is what statisticians do. Understanding variability and risk in a commercial context is what Data Analysis Australia does.

Business risk uses the language of statistics – how “likely” it is for a scenario to occur, and what outcome is “expected”? Data Analysis Australia uses probability theory and game theory to develop business models that assist clients to understand likely actions of their competitors. We have assisted large corporations to set prices that take into consideraion what the consumers will accept and how the market might react to it. Techniques like contingent valuation have been used not to simply determine whether consumers will buy a product, but what proportion of them will buy and what price leads to maximising net returns.

Commercial applications of mathematics or statistics are not always immediately visible. For example, financial calculation of returns might often just involve compound interest but when the details become only slightly more complex, mathematics becomes involved. Data Analysis Australia has assisted clients in precisely this situation, providing valuable advice on calculations in contracts worth millions of dollars.