Building Data Mining Applications for CRM [Paperback]

Alex Berson (Author), Stephen J. Smith (Author), Berson (Author), Kurt Thearling (Author)

Book Description

Series: Enterprise | Publication Date: December 22, 1999

-- Technology assigned to drive business goals -- Recently there have been many books written about data warehousing and several about data mining. Most of these focus on only one part of these technologies and have not shown how the technologies fit together to provide a business solution. This is a book to bridge the gap and give IT managers enough information so that they can implement the solution in a timely and credible way.
-- Justify what to buy -- IT managers are faced with many challenges and choices everyday in finding solutions to their data mining and data warehousing systems. This book arms them with strategies and an overview of the tools available so they can decide what is appropriate for their business needs.
-- The personal touch -- Provides comparison and contrast to different approaches and tools available for today's data mining. The authors then work with readers through a step-by-step plan to help them develop a personalized approach that will work best in their organization.
-- Shows readers how to make gains in their industry -- With focus on implementation and data mining technology, this book gives readers the ability to recognize and track patterns within their data, giving them a key competitive advantage over competition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

How data mining delivers a powerful competitive advantage!

Are you fully harnessing the power of information to support management and marketing decisions?

You will, with this one-stop guide to choosing the right tools and technologies for a state-of-the-art data management strategy built on a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) framework. Authors Alex Berson, Stephen Smith, and Kurt Thearling help you understand the principles of data warehousing and data mining systems, and carefully spell out techniques for applying them so that your business gets the biggest pay-off possible.

Find out about Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) tools that quickly navigate within your collected data. Explore privacy and legal issues...evaluate current data mining application packages...and let real-world examples show you how data mining can impact -- and improve -- all of your key business processes. Start uncovering your best prospects and offering them the products they really want (not what you think they want)!

About the Author

Alex Berson is a Director of Technology for a global management consulting firm. Dr. Berson holds a Ph.D. in Computer Sciences and M.S. in Applied Mathematics, and is an internationally recognized expert, author, educator and practitioner who has over 20 years of experience in information technologies focusing on data warehouse systems architecture, including design and implementation of systems and applications in the areas of data management, data warehousing and data mining; transaction processing; middleware, client/server distributed computing; and object technologies. Alex Berson is an active member of IEEE Computer Society, ACM, and many others. He’s also an advisory editor for the McGraw-Hill Professional Books division. He has published numerous technical articles in trade magazines, and is a best-selling author of a number of professional books including "Data Warehousing, Data Mining and OLAP"(with Steve Smith); "Client/Server Architecture"; "SYBASE and Client/Server Computing" (with George Anderson); and "APPC: Introduction to LU6.2". These books are published internationally, and had been translated in many languages including Chinese and Korean. His latest book, "Building Data Mining Applications for CRM", is scheduled to be published in December 1999.

Stephen Smith is the President and CEO of Optas, Inc. the leading provider of web-based Customer Relationship Management tools for the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare industries. Mr. Smith holds a BSEE from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MS from Harvard University. He has been working in the fields of Data Mining and Data Warehousing for the past 15 years. His initial work included research into new data mining techniques and optimized database sorting for massively parallel supercomputers. His recent work has included applying these technologies to real world business problems in managing customer databases, including directing the teams that were responsible for the creation of the data mining tools: Darwin (at Thinking Machines and now at Oracle) and Discovery Server (at Dun & Bradstreet). Mr. Smith has co-authored "Data Warehousing, Data Mining and OLAP"(1997) and "Building Data Mining Applications for CRM"(1999) from McGraw-Hill publishers. He can be contacted at: www.optas.com.

Kurt Thearling has spent much of the last decade designing, using, and evaluating data mining and customer relationship management technologies. As Director of Analytics at CRM software vendor Exchange Applications, Kurt directs the use of data mining and decision support technology as part of EA's software development and consulting practice. His extensive data mining web and CRM site can be found at www.thearling.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 488 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies (December 22, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071344446
• ISBN-13: 978-0071344449
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,147,744 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just what I needed. Five Stars!, January 21, 2000

By 

DWParis (Philadelphia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building Data Mining Applications for CRM (Paperback)

I picked up a copy of this book (along with a few others) after my boss put me on a project to apply data mining to a churn problem we have been having. Unlike most of the other books I found, this one didn't limit itself to algorithms and statistics. It answered all my questions and was critical to a successful presentation I gave to our VP of marketing. I'm just about to start applying what I learned by deploying a churn campaign and don't think I would be where I am without this book. I give it a five star recommendation.

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book helped me understand data mining, August 5, 2000

By 

Rod Sargent (Austin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building Data Mining Applications for CRM (Paperback)

I have to admit, I am not deep technologist. My degree is an MBA, not an MS in statistics, so I was a bit hesitant when I ordered this book. Fortunately, Berson and his co-authors did a great job translating technology into relevant business issues. I now "get it," at least that's what some of my more techincally savvy colleagues say.

I was looking for a good book that would help me understand what data mining could bring to our expanding e-commerce business channel. We already have several CRM software systems in place (marketing automation, call center, personalized web site) and this book helped me understand the analytic foundation that is built into the existing systems.

One final thing. Although this book does not claim to be a reference for data mining algorithms, it does have a pair of well written "techniques" chapters. These two chapters go though a long list of algorithms (clustering, CART, CHAID, neural networks, and more) and provide a nice introduction. For me it was perfect.

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Broad coverage of data mining Issues, May 19, 2000

By 

Tom Debevoise "Tom" (Natural Bridge, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building Data Mining Applications for CRM (Paperback)

In addition to CRM, this book presents extensive coverage of the basics of data mining and data warehousing. I found the material accurate and easy to read. There is a pretty standard review of the different data mining analysis techniques, from regression through neural networks and finally rule-based systems.

Since I am familiar with these topics, I found it difficult to wade through all of this to get to the CRM material. It would be nice if the publishers and authors would consider extracting the CRM material and creating a shorter, more focused form.

Just one quibble. At one point the authors make reference to 'altering customer behavior'. One objective of CRM is to match customer's behavior with appropriate offerings. One strategic outcome of CRM analysis is to change a businesses operations to match a customer's needs.

The book seem most focused on developing the correct analysis of customer data in order to achieve CRM objective. There are discussion of business cases such as churn and campaign analysis. Despite a section on architecture, the text is light on how the analysis affects operation systems.

Overall, I reccomend the book and I am still studying it.