The 10th Annual ORSP National Conference was held last November 25, 2016 at the Richmonde Hotel, Eastwood, Quezon City. The event attracted around 200 participants coming from both the industry and academe. A significant number of participants came from the academe who were interested to learn about a new frontier: the role that Analytics plays in the practice of OR.
The event featured plenary sessions led by invited speakers from industry as well as parallel paper presentations of authors representing various academic institutions. Each of the four plenary speakers provided insights on how Analytics is playing a major role in OR.
Andres Torres, Head of Market Research, Revenue Management and Demand Planning of Coca Cola FEMSA Philippines, discussed the value of strengthening the collaboration of industry and academe in developing data analysts here in the Philippines. Torres emphasized that academe provides the theory and training while the industry role is to provide the context and environment in the practice data analytics. A critical element that is often not highlighted when teaching data analytics is the mindset and context necessary in any data analytics initiative. Oftentimes, the focus tends to be on the tool or the methodology instead of the underlying meaning of the data and its analysis.
Mickey Gonzaga, Chief Operating Officer of AF Payments Inc., shared her experiences on the emerging sector of financial payment systems which is a rich area for seeing the potential value of data analytics. Non-cash financial payment systems are slowly gaining ground in the Philippines where it is expected that sooner than later will this become the norm in daily financial transactions.
Vic Reventar, a lecturer in the ADMU John Gokongwei School of Management, shared the opportunities of applying OR and Analytics in the area of Disaster Relief Operations in the Philippines. He showed that tapping geographic, weather, and socio-economic big data provides a great opportunity to come up with better decisions on how best to provide relief operations during disasters.
Ed Canela, Change Management and Organizational Development Expert, asked the audience on how ready it is to embrace the changes happening both nationally and globally. He called for his audience to think about the implications on business and industry of a technology that has made data more accessible, easier to capture in real time, while generating a voluminous amount of it more than ever before. The challenge he gave was how the OR community can capitalize on these latest trends to come up with better decisions.
Messages not only from the plenary speakers but also from paper presenters point to the indispensable role that has been cut out for Operations Research with the advent of Data Analytics. Powering the predictive and prescriptive aspects, Operations Research is here to stay.