By Gregory Piatetsky, @kdnuggets, Dec 9, 2014.

Latest KDnuggets Poll asked readers to select

Industries / Fields where you applied Analytics, Data Mining, Data Science in 2014?

Based on the results, the top 3 areas are

1. CRM/Consumer analytics (still n. 1)
2. Banking (moving to 2nd place from 4th in 2012)
3. Health care (was no 2 in 2012 combined with HR.)

 
However, a number of significant new areas also appeared.

These were not asked in 2012 poll, but added to the poll based on job ads on www.kdnuggets.com/jobs and in similar places.

The most notable new sectors are

1. Oil / Gas / Energy
2. Automotive
3. HR/workforce analytics
4. Mobile apps
5. Games
6. Agriculture

 
Here are the poll results - see additional analysis below.

Industries / Fields where you applied Analytics, Data Mining, Data Science in 2014? [221 voters] 2014 % of voters 2012 % of voters
CRM/Consumer analytics (49)	22.2% 28.6%
Banking (37)	16.7% 14.3%
Health care (was Healthcare/HR) (36)	16.3% 16.3%
Retail (30)	13.6% 14.8%
Fraud Detection (30)	13.6% 12.8%
Science (30)	13.6% 11.7%
Other (30)	13.6% 10.2%
Finance (24)	10.9% 10.2%
Advertising (23)	10.4% 13.3%
Oil / Gas / Energy (21)	9.5% na
E-commerce (21)	9.5% 5.1%
Manufacturing (20)	9% 7.10%
Telecom / Cable (20)	9% 6.6%
Social Media / Social Networks (19)	8.6% 12.2%
Insurance (19)	8.6% 7.7%
Credit Scoring (18)	8.1% 7.1%
Education (17)	7.7% 14.3%
Direct Marketing/ Fundraising (16)	7.2% 9.7%
Medical/ Pharma (16)	7.2% 6.6%
Software (16)	7.2% 5.6%
Biotech/Genomics (15)	6.8% 7.7%
Search / Web content mining (14)	6.3% 8.2%
Government/Military (14)	6.3% 5.1%
Automotive (13)	5.9% na
HR/workforce analytics (13)	5.9% na
Web usage/Log mining (13)	5.9% 6.6%
Investment / Stocks (11)	5.0% 4.1%
Travel / Hospitality (7)	3.2% 3.1%
Mobile apps (5)	2.3% na
Security / Anti-terrorism (5)	2.3% 3.6%
Games (4)	1.8% na
Entertainment/ Music/ TV/Movies (4)	1.8% 4.6%
Social Policy/Survey analysis (4)	1.8% 1.0%
Junk email / Anti-spam (4)	1.8% 0.5%
Social Good/Non-profit (3)	1.4% na

Comparing to Where did you apply Analytics/Data Mining in 2012? poll, we note that the biggest increases, computed as (pct2014 - pct2012) / pct2012, were for

• Junk email / Anti-spam, 262%
• E-commerce, 86%
• Social Policy/Survey analysis, 81%
• Telecom / Cable, 37%
• Other, 33%

 
The industries with the biggest decline in share of applications were

• Entertainment/ Music/ TV/Movies, -60.7%
• Education, -46.2%
• Security / Anti-terrorism, -37.2%
• Social Media / Social Networks, -29.5%
• Direct Marketing/ Fundraising, -25.4%

 
Average number of industries selected per voter was 2.8, slightly higher than 2.6 in 2012. However, we also note that about 40% of the voters only worked in one industry.

We can also measure affinity of industries by looking at applications most commonly selected together by the same voters. While this is not perfect, the results seem to be very meaningful.

For CRM/Consumer analytics, most close fields were Banking, Retail, E-commerce, and Direct Marketing/ Fundraising.

For Banking, most close fields were CRM/Consumer analytics, Retail, Credit Scoring, and Insurance.

For Health care, most close fields were Science, Medical/ Pharma, Biotech/Genomics, and Insurance.

The regional distribution was surprisingly similar to 2012 poll for US, Europe, and Asia, but with more participants from Latin America and fewer from Africa/Middle East:

• US/Canada, 39%
• Europe, 28%
• Asia, 18%
• Latin America, 9.0%
• Australia/NZ, 4.1%
• Africa/Middle East, 2.3%

 
Comments

Luis Aburto, Industries
I miss mining industry. There are many data mining application in this industry: predictive maintenance, quality and production optimization, among others.

David J, Additional Categories
IT Application and Network Infrastructure
HelpDesk/Customer Support

Felipe Bocca, Others:
Scientific application of DM for Agriculture

Here are the results of past polls:

• Industries / Fields where you applied Analytics, Data Mining, Data Science in 2014?
• Where did you apply Analytics/Data Mining in 2012?
• Industries / Fields where you applied Analytics / Data Mining, 2011.
• Industries / Fields for Analytics / Data Mining, 2010.
• Data Mining Applications, 2009.
• Data Mining Applications, 2008.
• Data Mining Applications by Industry, 2007.
• Industries/fields where you applied data mining, 2006.