You have been working for your company for several years, and you have been recognized for your project management success as well as your business analysis skills. You have a new boss, the Vice Presi

You have been working for your company for several years, and you have been recognized for your project management success as well as your business analysis skills. You have a new boss, the Vice President of Operations. He recently joined your company at the end of last year. It is now January, and the company has new goals for the year. Your boss has asked for your help identifying initiatives that will reduce department costs by 20%. You will be playing the role of a project manager. Your boss has requested you take the lead in the project to perform research using the previous year’s company data, SAS® data analytics, reporting tools, and other resources you identify in the CTU libraries and on the Internet to analyze your data and to make a suggestion for opportunities to reduce cost in your organizational department.

Through all of this course’s assignments, you will play the role of the project manager. You will make recommendations based on data, information, and analysis. You will use SAS OnDemand to analyze and report the data that support your recommendations in your presentation. Though you have no group assignments in this course, you will use the Discussion Board assignments to share your ideas with your classmates. Your classmates will act as simulated teammates in your organization, and they will provide guided feedback throughout the session. You will serve in the same role for your classmates. You will give feedback to your classmates for their assignments.

At the end, as the project manager, you will provide a final draft of a presentation to your manager with suggestions for cost reductions. That presentation and a final memorandum will be your Key Assignment project for this course.

Assignment Details: This Discussion Board assignment is designed to demonstrate your understanding of data mining. Generally, data mining is a tool that will help you extract and manipulate the data you need from the plethora of data available in many forms and places (including your organization and academic institutions) to conduct meaningful research and to make knowledge-based decisions. It is important that you develop an understanding of data mining and its usage in this course and in real-life, practical situations. 

To begin, complete the following, and post your response:

•Part 1: You must use CTU Online resources and the Internet to research and define data mining in your own words. In your definition, be sure to answer the following questions: ◦What is the origin of data mining? 

◦How was the term data mining formed? 

◦How has data mining evolved since it originated? Be sure to show a time line of major dates in this evolution. 

◦Discuss the purpose and value of data mining. 

•Part 2: You must also conduct research to find practical examples of how data mining is used in business decision making. Identify at least 3 examples. Provide references for your examples.