What parts of the data journey can PTR help with?

PTR supports the full data lifecycle: collecting, storing, preparing, and serving data for analytics and reporting, whether it be BI or AI.

Does PTR offer mentoring as part of its consultancy?

Yes. PTR uses a mentoring and collaborative style, helping upskill internal teams while guiding them through design and implementation.

What is the difference between data analytics and data science?

- Data analytics - analysing existing data to inform data driven decisions - Data science - advanced modelling, predictive analytics, machine learning, and building algorithms

Do I need AI as part of my BI strategy?

AI can enhance BI with data profiling, cleansing, predictive analytics, machine learning, and natural language capabilities — but whether you need it depends on your goals.

How does AI actually work?

AI uses computer programs (algorithms) written by humans to read data, follow rules, and produce outcomes. These systems use programming and significant computing power to process huge datasets quickly.

How do Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) fit into Decision Intelligence?

Machine Learning (ML) serves as a predictive component within the wider Decision Intelligence (DI) workflow. While a standard ML model might predict a single data link (e.g., winter coats approaching the spring season”), DI wraps that prediction inside business rules and financial trade-offs to decide the best course of action (e.g., “Should we discount it globally by 50% to clear it" or "Should be offer targeted discounts of 25% to high-loyalty customers near stores holding stock?”).

Data Science & Machine Learning

What is Data Science?

Data science applies advanced statistics, mathematics, and computational techniques to find patterns in data that may otherwise be difficult to identify by ourselves. In turn we can take those patterns and use them to answer questions, make predictions, and model the impact of change in ways that can far exceed that which may be possible through conventional analytics.

On of the most powerful tools in the data scientist's toolbox is Machine learning - algorithms that learn from historical data to make predictions or decisions about new, unseen information, and that improve as they are exposed to more of it.

Putting it all together, we can move beyond the what has happened? and why? of business intelligence, on to what is likely to happen next?, what might I do about it?, what may be the impact of changing x? - forecasting demand, flagging anomalies, scoring risk, segmenting customers, or automating judgements that previously needed a person at every step.

Of course though, a model is only ever as good as the data it learns from so it is vital to build on high quality, well governed data to ensure the inimitable confidence of an AI recommendation is based on solid foundations.

How can PTR help?

AI Readiness Assessment

Evaluate where the gaps are in your data and governance first, so you get the foundations right for any Artificial Intelligence (AI) or Machine Learning (ML) endeavours.

Ideation & Experimentation

Identify where the opportunities lie for potential data science projects and apply rigorous statistical methods to validate those ideas and measure impact to prove the patterns, and potential value, are real.

Machine Learning Model Development

Design, train, and validate models on your data to identify and act upon problems, challenges, and opportunities using advanced machine learning tools and techniques.

Predictive Analytics & Forecasting

Move from explaining the past to predicting the future so you can plan, make decisions, and act on what is coming, not just react to what has already occurred.

Model Operationalisation

Get the results of your experiments out of the lab, and reliably into production with the pipelines, monitoring, and retraining needed to keep them accurate and trusted over time.

Data Science Enablement

Build out your own data science capability with training and mentoring so you can continue to develop the ideas and opportunities we build together, without long-term partner dependence.

Technologies

We specialise in building data solutions in the Microsoft ecosystem. We have been a Microsoft partner since 2005, currently holding Solution Partner designation for Data & AI in Azure, with certifications held across the team in Microsoft Fabric, Azure, and Power BI so you can be confident that our knowledge and skills have been tried and tested.

Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Fabric is a unified analytics platform, an evolution of several existing Microsoft analytics products consolidated into a single administrative environment and licensing model which makes licensing, development, and administration much simpler.

Microsoft Azure

Azure is a public cloud offering from Microsoft. With an ever expanding marketplace of components and services available, you can build tailor made data platform solutions precisely to your specification.

Why choose PTR?

We have been helping our clients for over 35 years, bringing meaning and context to data for organisations of all shapes and sizes. We take the time to listen and learn everything we can about you, your business, your people, your data estate, and your aspirations to design and build practical and scalable solutions that put advanced analytics to work on real business problems — delivering measurable return on investment, rather than science projects that never leave the lab.

Some of the people who have relied on us to solve their data engineering challenges:

How do we work with you?

Whether it's purely strategic advice, implementation and development work to spec, fractional data science support, or a fully outsourced data function, we offer a range of flexible engagement patterns to suit your business, budget, and need.

Pay As You Go

DAY RATE

£1,250/day

Flexible delivery as and when you need it

No Commitment
Time and Materials
Use us when you need us

Fixed Project Fee

PRICE

£On Request

Everything locked in up front

Fixed Deliverables
Fixed Fee
Clear timescales

Retained Service

FROM

£1,095/month

Cost effective and flexible resource augmentation

12 Month Agreement
Minimum 1 day/month
Discounted day rate
Predictable monthly billing
Flexible delivery
Easy top-up
Discounted training

What does this look like for you?

Everyone is different so we tailor our approach to reflect that by listening to you, understanding where you're starting, where you're aiming for, and what your priorities are. This is just an example of what a typical journey often looks like with us, yours may be different but the starting point is the same - a chat!

1 Hour - An introductory call with one of our solution architects to learn about your requirements and help us identify the best next steps for you.

Typically 3-5 days - A deep dive investigation of your business systems and data estate, your people and their skills, and your business needs and aspirations. We use this to put together a solid technical strategy and implementation plan for you.

Typically 5 Days - Particularly with larger projects, it is useful to demonstrate the technical feasibility and business value of a project before committing to long term spend. Not always necessary, but can help to firm up some variables and to measure consumption demands which can be difficult to predict in cloud environments.

Typically 10-20 Days - This really will be different for everyone and can vary widely, but we aim to work in short cycles that deliver quick results with scope for iterative onward development and flexibility to change requirements.

Typically 3-5 Days/Month - Once people get an appetite for data, it tends to keep growing and with it, requirements keep evolving. Our retainer service enables you to keep a highly skilled data team on hand to respond to those changing requirements under a predictable billing model to suit your budget.

Free Discovery Workshop

Data Discovery Project

Proof of Concept/Value (PoC/PoV)

Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

Retained Consultancy Service

Data Science & Machine Learning Consultancy Services