In recent years, the North American swine industry has evolved rather dramatically from being largely comprised of family-farming type businesses to being dominated by large integrated meat protein producing firms operating in several industries. Because of the changes associated with this evolution, the leaders of the swine industry have been transaction focused for too long. This includes buying new assets and making new deals. As leaders of the North American swine industry are forced to manage their businesses rather than just grow them in an effort to become competitive, their focus will increasingly be on making their businesses profitable. As has occurred with other non-agricultural industries, understanding opportunities to increase profitability through cost and revenue management will be integral to the success of pork businesses. Data mining will be the key to that understanding. You do not have to be good in mathematics to mine data, you just need to know arithmetic and be willing to study numbers.