Question:

(a) What are decision support systems, and what role do they play in the business environment?

(b) Data mining is a knowledge discovery process of automated extraction of hidden predictive information from large databases.

(i) Describe the four main steps involved in the data mining process.

(ii) There are various data mining techniques dealing with different types of problems. Give example of any three techniques that could be used in a supermarket.

(iii) To better exploit data mining what are the pre-requisites for a data warehouse?

(iv) Discuss the two critical factors which can affect success with the application of data mining technology.

(v) Data mining being relatively a new technology, what advantages would an Insurance company achieved for implementing such a technique? Illustrate your answer with some examples.