By Lacie Blankenship
In a forthcoming special issue of Production and Operations Management on business analytics, Kejia Hu, Brownlee O. Currey Jr. Dean's Faculty Fellow and Assistant Professor of Operations Management, along with Morgan Swink of Texas Christian University and Xiande Zhao of China Europe International Business School, discuss the current state of business analytics (current usage and challenges) and goals for future data analysis based on interviews with several c-suite executives at major American and Chinese restaurants and food supply chain firms. Below are 4 takeaways from their research:
Restaurants collect a wide variety of data across their supply chain. Restaurant chains' data analytics capabilities have historically lagged behind other industries, but they are catching up. Restaurant chains collect data from a large number of touchpoints from farm to table (i.e.: farming data, shelf life data, inventory data, kitchen efficiency data, sales data, and so much more). The data doesn't end on the logistics side. There is a significant amount of data collected from customers categorized as basic data (i.e., demographics), engagement data (i.e., visit frequency), or behavioral data (i.e., purchase history).
