Many auto recyclers are beginning to understand the value of collecting customer data, but also realize the challenges of leveraging this knowledge to create intelligent, proactive pathways back to the customer. Data mining - technologies and techniques for recognizing and tracking patterns within data - helps businesses sift through layers of seemingly unrelated data for meaningful connections, where they can anticipate, rather than simply react to, customer needs.

When most people think about mining they picture men and machines working in gold mines, diamond mines or even coal mines. However, today the most valuable mining that happens isn't in metals or fuels, it is in data, Data mining is the process of analyzing data from different perspectives (different sources) and summarizing it into information which can be used to increase productivity, eliminate waste, cut costs, and most importantly, increase revenue for the business seeking the data and conducting the analysis.

There's an oft-quoted saying among statisticians that we are awash in data but starved for information. As editor in chief of Mitchell International's Industry Trends Report I place a great deal of importance on accurate data, as you can well imagine. I routinely query our data warehouse for latest information that will help me illustrate where the collision industry has been and where it is headed. But there's more to it than just gathering and interpreting collision data to compile national statistics for use in our magazine. The challenge is to turn the data into useful, actionable information.