The HAVING clause is a powerful tool in SQL for filtering the results of aggregate functions. Imagine you're analyzing sales data. You might want to find the departments with average sales exceeding a certain threshold. The WHERE clause, on the other hand, filters individual rows *before* any aggregation takes place. This means you can't use it to filter groups of rows based on aggregate values. The HAVING clause addresses this limitation. It allows you to specify conditions on the aggregated results, enabling you to extract meaningful insights from your data. For example, you can use HAVING to find departments with average sales above a certain amount, or to count the number of orders placed by customers who have spent more than a specific amount. The HAVING clause is essential for complex data analysis, allowing you to focus on groups of data that meet specific criteria after the aggregate functions have done their work. It's a crucial component of SQL for extracting meaningful information from large datasets.