Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
2
What Is Mar
ket Basket Analysis?
Florida's 2004 hurricane season taught me to keep flashlights and batteries
handy. You never know which hurricane will turn out the lights. Hurricane
Charley left our electricity uninterrupted. Hurricane Frances, however,
did such a spectacular job of knocking out electricity that we were without
electricity, and lights, for a week. That's when I learned to find my way
through my house by flashlight…all night long. Market Basket Analysis is
similar to my experience after Hurricane Frances. Market Basket Analysis
is a search for what you're looking for. You and your business are in a dark
room with no light. You can shine a flashlight in the dark. Eventually, you
use the information obtained by shining your flashlight into the dark-
ness to operate your business. Your flashlight is Market Basket Analysis.
The dark room is your business environment. And your business is not an
allegory—it is very real.
ANAlysIs versus rePortING
Before exploring Market Basket Analysis, we need to establish a distinction
between Business Intelligence Reporting and Business Intelligence Analysis.
This distinction will guide the understanding of the activities and goals of
Market Basket Analysis. Otherwise, we will be discussing two different sets
of Business Intelligence methods and not realize we're having two different
conversations, because they both use the same jargon. To understand the
difference, we can go back to the flashlight in the dark room.
The Analysis Flashlight can shine on one spot at a time. You shine
the Analysis Flashlight onto a corner of the room, another corner of the
room, a couch, a chair, and eventually on every spot in the room. Having
13
