Obstacles

A company must have a very clear objective of what it wants data mining to achieve. Data mining should not be considered until there is a clear plan on how it will be used. If a company jumps into this without a well thought out plan, the results will be costly and disappointing.

Data mining is very costly for company. The costs can run over $100,000. Therefore, only larger companies have been implementing it. Besides just the initial costs, it is expensive to continue running. Data mining can be difficult to understand and learn, therefore it can become time consuming for the user.

The quality of the data being analyzed is an issue. The data needs to be 'cleaned' before mining can begin. Even after 'cleaning' and preparing the data, there are still no definite answers. Data mining can only return predictions.

Security becomes a real concern. Especially since more data is being mined through the Internet, security becomes an issue for both the company and the customer. Firewalls need to be implemented.

The future of data mining will have to address these issues.