Re: DM: Queries...

[Michael LaBorde]

As to the data warehouse question:

Data warehouses (at least as originally conceived; the term is thrown 
around 
quite loosely these days) is not just a historical database but is 
one that is 
optimized to support decision making and data analysis (though not 
necessarily 
the kind of data discovery involved in data mining).  Data warehouses 
also 
organize the data by subject matter.

As to some of the marketing issues and data warehouse:

Ralph Kimball's book "The Data Warehouse Toolkit" (John Wiley & Sons, 
1996; ISBN
0-471-15337-0) has information on building data warehouse databases 
to support 
standard sales and marketing performance tracking.  I would imagine 
that some of
this information would be relevant to identifying the kinds of data 
one would 
need to do project planning and project projections.

I would imagine though that your application would require 
considerable 
demographic information, information about similar products (if any) 
already in 
the marketplace and the buying patterns and demographics of those 
product's 
customers.  This would probably mean that, in addition to the 
demographics and 
survey data gathered from a prospective customer survey, you would 
have to 
acquire a lot of data from someplace like A.C. Nielsen or one of the 
other firms
that specialize in providing marketing information about products.  I 
haven't 
looked there but if Nielsen has a web site you might want to see if 
they discuss
using their supplied data to deal with exactly the kind of problem 
you are 
talking about.  Whatever data you would acquire would certainly 
require a data 
mining approach to get at what I think you are trying to establish.  
The results
are out of scope for a traditional data warehouse. 

There is also a chapter (17) in the book "Data Warehousing: 
Strategies, 
Technologies and Techniques by Rob Mattison (McGraw-Hill, 1996; ISBN 
0-07-041034-8) that discusses the use of neural nets for making 
marketing 
projections based on demographics and other factors relating to 
promotions and 
response to product offers.  The chapter was written by a tool vendor 
so may 
need to be taken with a grain or two of salt but it looks like it 
might be 
related to your problem.

Chapter 20 of the same book deals with data mining tools that can be 
used for 
predicting.  The example is not to your subject matter but may be 
useful.  It 
too was written by a vendor (of a different product) so the same 
caveats apply.


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______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: DM: Queries...
Author:  Srikanth.Jagannath@blr.sni.de at MAILHUB-SMTP
Date:    8/6/97 3:12 AM


Hello,
     
     I am really sorry for such a long mail, but I have some queries.
     
     I have a few queries regarding the application of Data Mining 
and 
     Data Warehousing. Yesterday I had posted to this group about some
     practical case studies, and Mr. Dorothy Firsching had responded 
asking 
     me to have a look at http://www.nautilus-systems.com/. Yep,I had 
a look 
     at this site, and got some information on applicaiton of Data 
Mining to 
     the marketing of medicines. Here again it is mentioned that the 
data 
     was analysed, extracted and from this knowledge was extracted.
     
     But my quesion is, what sort of data would be helpful for such 
     analysis. Usually, I guess, that such companies perform a market 
     survey by going to the consumers with a questionaire, and they 
perform 
     analysis on this data obtained from the questionaire. If again
     such data is gathered and analysis done using this, then what is 
the need 
     for Data Mining. In the case of Data Mining, I guess, that this 
     information is obtained from the data recorded about each 
consumer 
     transaction in the database. I have a typical marketing scenario 
for 
     which I am wondering as to what should be the data that has
     to be recorded. I would give you a brief of the scenario:
     
     I have a company providing some service to the customers. The 
company 
     stores data regarding the customer, the service being provided, 
     customer transactions, billing details, payment details, etc.,. 
Now my 
     aim is to find the customer base which would respond if the 
company 
     starts a new service, I would also like to know as to what would 
be 
     the response for the new service, what new service to start and 
things 
     like this. For this what special data must be stored in the 
database.
     
     Moreover I have been having some conflicting thoughts about Data 
     Warehousing. As far as I perceived Data Warehousing is a data 
store 
     that stores historic data, and data analysis can be done on this 
data 
     store. But when I explained this to a lay man, he was asking me 
as to 
     if this is just the use of Data Warehousing then why do you need 
one, 
     or why is it being called Data Warehouse, and not just any other 
     database, say Historic Database. I was just wondering on this 
point.
     
     Actually all this is happening because I have not had any formal 
     discussion with any experts/researchers in this area. The 
knowledge 
     that I have gained is by reading research papers. So it would be 
great 
     if someone gives me an insight into this questions, and also 
some 
     suggestions on some book/paper that is more explanatory in these 
     aspects.
     
     Thanks in advance,
     regards
     -srikanth