Solved: Define Data Mining. Give an example how a company can use data mining

Data mining is the process of evaluating and analysing already existing data to figure out patterns and forecasts. The data which already exists in an organization is used again by applying several tools and techniques to it and calculate the future results or forecast it to figure out a pattern etc.

A very good example of data mining is in retail . The company looks at the two types of customers, one who buys small but frequently and last purchase was recently done and the other who buys big but once in a while , then the company will offer to the former one loyalty, upsell or cross sell offers and the latter one winback offers etc. Now the company can only find out about this buying pattern of the customer by only analysing and mining previous records of the customers.