Thus a firm 'producing' marketing studies from survey data tries to control all of the different phases: conceptualization, fieldwork, data processing and interpretation of the final results. Our goal here is to study the question of the data processing phase in relation to different solutions to the problem. Before presenting a historical review we would like to outline the basic steps in processing survey data by defining their main characteristics. Naturally, we cannot undertake a full study of electronic equipment currently being used by marketing firms. Rather we shall talk from our own experiences to illustrate the evolution which has taken place in equipment and in the opening of new perspectives to users.
Typal analysis is a powerful tool for determining a structure within a large body of data . By studying and comparing the results of two series of experiments (random typology and typology of random numbers) we have been able to define two coefficients which measure informational content and the amount of structure for a given typology. The usefulness of these coefficients in solving the problems associated with typal analysis is demonstrated.