Data Mining and Business Intelligence: A Guide to Productivity

Data Mining and Business Intelligence: A Guide to Productivity provides an overview of data mining technology and how it is applied in a business environment. It describes the corresponding data mining methodologies that are used to solve a variety of business problems which enhance firm-level efficiency in a less technical, more managerial style. The book incorporates the data mining process into the spectrum of complementary technologies that together comprise corporate information systems that promote business intelligence. Business intelligence involves the proliferation of value-added information throughout a given enterprise through the use of various applications that promotes efficiency for the firm.

Stephan Kudyba began his career in the investment banking industry where he spent over a decade of his life analyzing the state of the global economy. His experience has included such activities as International Economist/Market Analyst and Risk Exposure Management, which involved the creation of sophisticated models that identified trends in securities prices. Over the years, he has worked in such institutions as Citibank (New York), Dresdner Bank (Frankfurt, Germany and New York) during which he obtained a Masters in Business Administration with a finance concentration. In order to fully grasp the changing nature of economic activity as a result of the evolving information age, Dr. Kudyba attained a PhD in economics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a special focus on information technology and firm level productivity. He is now an economic consultant with Cognos Corporation where he applies data mining and business intelligence technology to devise productivity enhancing strategies for organizations around the globe.

Richard Hoptroff obtained a PhD in Physics in London for developing optimization algorithms and neural networks for industrial applications including control systems and robot vision. After graduating in 1992, he applied the same techniques to economics and business modeling. After initially working as a consultant, he started Right Information Systems (RIS), a software company dedicated to producing what was to become known as data mining software. RIS's premier product was 4Thought, a neural-network based modeling and forecasting package. In 1997, RIS was acquired by Cognos Inc of Ottawa, Canada, where he became Director of Data Mining. In 1999 he returned to independent consulting and is currently based in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.