Past performance is no guarantee of future results, we have all heard this before. However, past performance can help us to better predict the future. As computers get faster and faster they are able to process larger amounts of customer data in near real time. For a while now, you have been able to drill down through your data to see for example where your sales are coming from. The problem was it took a while and by the time you got your answer something else had come up to side track you. But now with faster processors, I can mine my data to find interesting trends quickly, and that can lead me to other questions that I can quickly find out the answers.

There are infinite amount of things you could search on, but say you sold product online to businesses in North America. So maybe you want to know which state you sold the most product too. Now in near real time you can get that answer. So say you find out you sell a lot of product in Florida, my next question that's interesting, why? So the next thing I do is dig a bit deeper and I find out that there is one product in particular that business are buying in Florida. So you dig a little more, where in Florida? You find that is mostly on the Atlantic coast. Interesting, why? So you find a few customers in Florida on the coast and you ask them, why? Turns out they have a use for your product during a hurricane. You had no idea that the product would be useful in a hurricane but after thinking it over you realize of course it would be great in that situation.

So now, armed with this new information you start marketing your product to area's that are affected by hurricanes, and low and behold your sales goes up 300%.

While this example is fictitious, it is based on reality. If you can mine your data to find out information about who/what/when or why you can take the right steps.

Remember when you are mining, you don't know what you might find. It might be problem that you need to rectify or it could be an opportunity that you can take advantage about. Either way, if you don't know, you can't take action.