DDD Success Story: European Union (EU)

The EU is one of Cambodia's largest Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO). The EU works in various ways to facilitate the overall development of Cambodia. One particular branch of the EU works to foster disarmament in a country which has been so war-torn. The EU runs several programs including "flames of peace" (the public burning of turned-in weaponry) aimed at disarming the population. As part of the EU's efforts to disarm the public, they gather reams of demographic information from every province in the country. As the EU team tried to cope with the amount of data they had, they realized that it was too much for their team to manage.

After collecting some 10,000 surveys from rural provinces, the EU began to sort the data and consider whether or not to hire staff to input the data into a database or send the data to Vietnam for processing. The EU heard about DDD's other successful projects within Cambodian and asked DDD for help and advice.

DDD Partnership

"After investigating many options both with other service firms and in-house, the EU found a great partner in DDD," says Neil Wilford, program director of EU ASAC. "DDD was able to take all the records off our hands and simply give us a polished database and guaranteed a high level of accuracy. DDD even delivered the finished product ahead of schedule."

DDD agreed to process 10,000 EU disarmament surveys for the EU. The paper documents were delivered weekly and DDD produced an updated database at the end of each month. Since DDD was processing the surveys at the same time as new surveys were being delivered, DDD was able to finish the entire job just two weeks after the final survey was delivered. DDD designed an Access database to manage the data for the client as well.

"Our EU contract was an excellent example of the kind of work we have done for 11 different Cambodian NGOs," says DDD General Manager Nhev SithSophary. Most NGOs spend far too much time processing data when they could use it to analyze the information. DDD offers the chance for NGOs to shed the cost and time burden of data entry.

DDD has been in the survey processing business for over two years and has developed a methodology that includes standardized province, city and town names (items common on almost all surveys) which can great improve quality and speed for NGOs. DDD has also performed survey processing for several marketing firms in Cambodia.

Creating a Legacy

DDD is currently working on a second contract for the EU to process another set of surveys from a different region in the country. For more information, contact Nhev SithSophary