Flight Centre, an international airline booking company currently uses a relational database system for their operations. Its headquarters is based in London. In addition, the company has several overseas offices located in other major cities around the world (including Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York), and is ambitious in its drive for further expansion in a competitive global market.
Although the company has a well-developed relational database system at present, the management intends to utilize new technology including data mining and data warehousing to further improve business planning, customer services and marketing operations.
Question1. Describe the definition and main characteristics of a data warehouse.
Question2. Discuss the three basic components in a data warehouse system and their main functions.
Question3. Briefly outline the process of data mining.
Question4. Describe and discuss in detail, any two data mining techniques which may be used beneficially by the company. For each technique discussed above, provide two examples appropriate for the business context.
Question5. Identify potential advantages and disadvantages of employing data mining techniques for the company.