What is Data Preparation?

Data preparation is the process of cleaning, transforming, and structuring raw data into a usable format for analysis and decision-making. It typically involves tasks such as data cleaning (handling missing values, correcting errors), data transformation (scaling, normalization, aggregation), data integration (combining data from multiple sources), and data reduction (feature selection, dimensionality reduction). Common uses include building machine learning models, performing business intelligence analysis, and generating reports.