What is Data Mining? How is it helpful in a big retail organisation ?

Data Mining: It is a technique of extracting hidden predictive information from large databases. It is a powerful new technology to help companies focus on the most important information in their data warehouses. Data mining tools predict future trends and behaviors, allowing businesses to make proactive, knowledge- driven decisions. Data mining tools predict future trends and behaviors, allowing businesses to make proactive, knowledge-driven decisions. For a commercial business, the discovery of previously unknown statistical patterns or trends can provide valuable insight into the function and environment of their organization. Further, it could assist an organization in taking considered and knowledge driven decisions especially retail firms in following manner- It would help the company in focussing on the most important information in the data warehouses; Assemble data from multiple sources into a single database enabling a central view across the enterprise. Maintain a centralized history of Data from all the stores and billing counters. Improve the quality of data by enhancing its consistency across all stores irrespective of language, currency etc. Restructures the data in the form of tables and views so that it makes sense to the business users. It facilitates in extracting meaningful patterns of Buyer Behaviour, Purchase decisions etc. It assists in designing marketing, pricing and operational strategies. It also helps in understanding various other factors such as consumer behaviour, product performance, market predictions, performance of advertising campaigns, shelf space allocations etc. This will help in Data Mining, analytical processing and market research.