Data Mining
What it is:
Data mining refers to the systematic software analysis of groups of data in order to uncover previously unknown patterns and relationships.
How it works (Example):
So called because of the manner in which it explores information, data mining is carried out by software applications which employ a variety of statistical and artificial intelligence methods to uncover hidden patterns and relationships among sets of data. For instance, a data mining program might be able to uncover a relationship between high sales volumes and poor weather conditions.
Why it Matters:
Data mining software is able to perform complex calculations and analyses on sets of data in a very short time. For this reason, data mining is used by companies in strategic planning.
