Phil Hearn: Blogger, Writer & Founder of MRDC Software Ltd.

What makes Resolve Premium different?


The real question is: ‘Is Resolve a unique survey analysis tool?’ Every market research software supplier wants to claim that its software is unique. Indeed, almost every business wants to claim that their product or service is unique. Of course, they rarely are unique. However, I am going to claim that Resolve is unique, and there are four BIG reasons. But, first, my claim.

The Claim

Resolve is the only software product in the world that allows you, entirely through a graphical user interface (GUI), to produce market research crosstabulations of any complexity efficiently, allowing colleagues and clients to create their own analyses and charts as well as giving you more choice in how you handle your data analysis for each project most effectively. Heck, that was a long sentence. Oh, and I didn’t even mention that it’s a fraction of the cost of almost every other product that can produce crosstabs.

Let’s unpack that claim…

Entirely through a graphical user interface

There are many software products available that can produce crosstabs. Most use a graphical user interface (GUI) or a menu-driven system; a small number use a scripting language. The problem with all the GUI products is that they all have limitations. I don’t just mean limitations in terms of the number of questions or number of respondents (although that can be a problem); I mean the actual complexity of crosstabs you can produce. One or two products, such as Ruby, allow you to escape the confines of a GUI system by allowing you to use programming languages, but that breaks the rules of my claim!



Crosstabulations of any complexity

How can any software product perform any level of complexity? OK, I’ll be honest, here is the one weak link in my claim. Underneath Resolve is the MRDCL engine, but you don’t need to buy an MRDCL licence. MRDCL is unmatched for the power and flexibility it offers for crosstabs. I would have to agree that, in truth, MRDCL cannot produce any table of any complexity. However, in the last 20 years, we have not had a client who has wanted to produce a crosstab that MRDCL cannot generate. And, here’s the big thing. Whatever MRDCL can do, Resolve can do. So, I am going to stick by my claim.

Efficiently

The ‘efficiently’ claim is not part of the uniqueness, to be fair. It is just a fact that Resolve allows you to produce analysis efficiently because MRDCL has the tools to do things efficiently. This factor particularly shines when crosstabs are complex or repetitive, where you need a lot of laborious input in other systems.

More choice in how you handle your data analysis for each project most effectively

Resolve opens up choices. Choices in business enable productivity and efficiency. For example, having MRDCL and Resolve means that you can look at each project’s requirements and choose the best way to handle each task. Maybe, it needs a data processing expert from start to finish, in which case MRDCL might be the right tool. Perhaps, there are some complex variables and data constructions, but the analysis is simple. In this case, using MRDCL to create the variables and Resolve to produce the analysis works well. Maybe a project is simple in which case dropping it into Resolve makes sense so that researchers or clients can browse the data. Or, you may have a project in SPSS data format where SPSS is too clumsy to produce the crosstabs you need. Porting it from SPSS to Resolve would make good sense. As I say, having a choice is important in most businesses.

It’s a fraction of the cost of almost every other product that can produce crosstabs

That is an indisputable fact. Resolve Base is free. Resolve Premium is just GBP400 (about USD550 at the time of writing this article) for a licence with considerable discounts for multiple users. This price compares favourably with most products which cost over USD1000 (and far more in most cases!), mostly with no or only small discounts for multiple users.

So, Resolve Premium is unique. How does it do it?

As I have already mentioned, Resolve uses the MRDCL engine. Resolve has built-in tools to perform most common crosstab needs. However, it expands its capability by using add-ins. Add-ins are interfaces that allow you to specify complex or repetitive requirements through easy-to-follow menus and selections. There are three big reasons why Resolve Premium makes it unique.

  • MRDC Software gives you access to 15 freely downloadable, commonly-requested add-ins that carry out advanced tasks or make something that would be time-consuming easy.
  • You can edit and make as many variants of these add-ins to suit your own particular needs and distribute them to colleagues and clients.
  • You can make your own custom add-ins to do anything in the world (well, in terms of crosstabs!)


Resolve Premium is different

I am, therefore, going to stick with my claim that Resolve Premium is unique – and it comes at an affordable price. You can make your project available for distribution within Resolve using MRDCL or QPSMR or using our low-cost service, starting at USD50 per project. Remember, you do not need an MRDCL licence to use Resolve; Resolve opens up access to the power of MRDCL.  If you have several projects that you want to distribute to colleagues or clients, you may wish to use a QPSMR licence which costs under GBP900.


Don’t forget that Resolve Base is free

If some of your data users only want to produce simple tables and charts, you can, of course, use the free Resolve Base version. So, you only need to purchase Premium licences for those doing the more difficult tasks.


Does this sound interesting?

Let’s talk. Please contact nikki.sunga@mrdcsoftware.com.