Herz doesn't want to tip his hand to competitors by specifying the percentage, but he says it was very significant. Chase has possessed the customer data to alter strategy on such factors as minimum balances for many years, but recently the tools to study that data have improved significantly. Herz can now predict the impact of strategic decisions with better precision and can make informed decisions much faster. Tools to Guide Your Way B anks use an array of tools to analyze the customer data contained within their data warehouses and data marts. Data mining tools are still in the early stages of development, so practitioners may try several new tools each year.
Some vendors tailor their products for specific industries.
San Francisco-based HyperParallel Corp., for example, offers a module with algorithms specific to the financial services industry in its data mining product. Of course, even before deciding which tools are best suited for a problem, data mining analysts must make sure they have consistent, accurate data. But to obtain a full picture of customer relationships, an organization needs access to all customer data enterprisewide. Such inconsistencies have to be corrected before mining can begin. For most companies, that's no simple task, and it slows down the work of data mining groups.