Using Business Data Intelligently

All the data that has accumulated in your organisation over the years can give you more insights than you would have ever thought, only if you deploy data mining techniques

What if your data could tell you automatically how the time of the day, combined with the weather, affects the footfall in your shops? What if your data could help you visualize correlations between raw material availability and time to market with hardly any effort on your end? That, and much more, is what data mining can help you do.

What data mining is NOT It is a popular misconception that data mining is semantically equivalent to business analytics/business intelligence. Data mining is concerned with the discovery (which is typically accidental and hence should be surprising to the end user in ideal conditions) of unknown patterns/hidden trends in your data. It is a means to an end, not the returns gained by itself.

Where is data mining in daily lives? Google Trends is a good example of data mining. So are TV viewership estimates which co-relate a particular program’s viewer’s age and location with purchasing power. The actual data mining process always happens behind the scenes. In fact, not all data mining tools even have a GUI, but they do a good job at mining the data and if properly used, are worth every Rupee spent. They affect our daily lives. Why should I consider data mining for my organization’s data?

Data mining brings to you many opportunities that have the potential to help you gain high returns. For instance, customers typically buy a set of goods together during few sporadic intervals of time in a year, such as during festivals. Data mining can be a valuable asset in deciding the margin that you keep. You can find out when a loyal customer turns otherwise, what purchase made him to do so, and so on. This is valuable by all means for any SME. Similar benefits are applicable when you are dealing with data from your supplier chain. How can I get started using data mining? For an SME, the first step to start reaping benefits from data mining is to consistently record data in a pre-defined format. For a start, most of your needs will be satisfied by even common Office applications such as Excel and Access. You may already be analyzing the data contained in these applications. But when you enter the data that is necessary (as well as sufficient: no more, no less) to discover hidden patterns, you will start seeing the results. When recording data, you should record information that can help you gain the added advantage. For instance, when you enter a new customer, try to extract information about how the customer was introduced to your SME (via another customer by word of mouth/advertisement, etc.) and include that data in your records. This will help the data mining tool easily draw relations and help you find out influential customers. It won’t take too long before you are able to gauge the returns. When you enter data for a new batch of raw material having arrived, enter information about the stock in the inventory and the demand at that