A system is disclosed for recognition of patterns in data. It has particular application to a data management system for managing data relating to customers and transactions, the aim being to derive predictive information relating to the future behavior of customers. The system comprises an analysis engine for analysing relationships between responses made by a user to questions relating to a service or products, in which the analysis is of responses made by a customer to one or more constructs. The system operates by subjecting data relating to the opinions of customers to a process of fuzzy entailment such that meaningful conclusions can be drawn when data is an imprecise match with a set of conditions.