Roadmap to a data-driven, analytically-competitive Philippines

MANILA, Philippines —  In agricultural areas, seasoned farmers have long known about when to plant and what to plant so that they can sustain their livelihood. But this is being challenged. Recently, we are seeing times when certain crops re under- or over-produced; both scenarios seriously affecting their livelihood. Furthermore, changing weather patterns have affected yield rates.

 In urban areas, millions of call center agents receive service requests and complaints from local and international customers of their main clients. They probably know more about their client’s customers than their main clients?

We are a rich nat ion data -wise but . . .

In the digital age, data is the new natural resource, and the Philippines is one of the largest producers.

Over 25 percent of the Filipino workforce is employed in the agriculture industry, including the hunting and forestry

sectors. This means that our farmers and our fisherfolk have a lot of stock knowledge on how to efficiently grow the industry.

The BPO industry contributes more than 10 percent of our GDP. This means that a vast majority of customer data of the clients these BPO companies serve are created in the country.

Millions of Filipinos spend an average of almost four hours a day on social media sites — the highest social media usage in the world. This means that we contribute a lot to the data that is being collected by these social media sites.

However, like any natural resource, data should be mined and refined properly, efficiently, and ethically to truly bring about good for our society. We lag behind our ASEAN neighbors in the mining and refining of data for economic development, though we are catching up rather quickly.

Building the analyt cs ecosystem of the philippines

In 2016, the Analytics Association of the Philippines (AAP) was established with a mission to “develop the ecosystem that makes the Philippines a data-driven country, and globally competitive in and a leading talent source of Analytics and other emerging Analytics-enabled disciplines (such as Artificial Intelligence) for the good of society.”

To realize this mission, a starting point had to be established. The approach was to offer a shared definition of Analytics, a set of the major Analytics job families, a list of Analytics skills and competencies, and maturity models for professionals and organizations.

With these models being comprehensive (but not complicated), enduring, and valuable to professionals and organizations, the AAP had to ensure that these models have global references. Having a globally recognized framework means that Filipino professionals and organizations who will adapt this framework can be globally competitive as well. As such, the AAP turned to studies done by the Business-Higher Education Forum from North

America, by Project EDISON from Europe, and from Project DARE (Data Analytics Raising Employment) from the APEC region.

Building blocks of a data -driven Philippines

To properly, efficiently, and ethically mine and refine the data that we produce for economic development, the AAP posits that our country must develop a certain maturity level in certain Analytics capabilities and assets including:

Data. We must be relentless in search for new data, leveraging all varieties of data including text, image, and video. As a country, we need to view data as a strategic asset.

Practitioners. We need to have professionals both technical and industry-savvy who are highly capable in Analytics and other emerging Analytics-enabled disciplines. The country must be able to develop, provide life-long employability, and keep these professionals highly engaged.

Technology. The country needs to invest more in infrastructure such as hardware, software, network connectivity and bandwidth to transform data to its full potential.

Analytical Techniques. We need to employ various analytical techniques ranging from simple descriptive statistics to advanced machine learning to, again, get the most relevant insights from data.

More importantly, the country needs to build a countrywide data culture that includes:

Goals. As a country, we need to be able to select the right, strategic, countrywide and/or region-specific targets that will be the core of an Analytics roadmap.

Leadership. We need to have strong, committed leadership that understands the importance of Analytics and constantly advocates their use in decision and actions.

Our journey has begun

The AAP has successfully tested and incubated this framework in pilot programs with the University of Asia and the Pacific (academe), and in Pointwest Technologies Corporation (private sector). The AAP is also collaborating with

various government agencies starting with a memorandum of agreement with DOST-PCIEERD on Data Science Cooperation.

With these programs and with these building blocks in place, our journey to an analytically-competitive Philippines continues as we start rolling out mining and refining activities to the data that we produce.

We can draw insights from the collective knowledge of our farmers and fisherfolk injecting other variables such as weather patterns, soil type and water supply availability. This is done with the goal of producing just the right volume of crops at the right time.

We can add even more value to the services we provide within our BPO sector by providing clients insights to their

own customers that they may not otherwise glean from millions of records produced regularly. Such insights could be turned into action that will provide end users with better customer experience.

And lastly, we can have better use of social media by being able to identify, gather, and analyze the factors that will contribute to a happier general public.

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Sherwin Pelayo chairs the Analytics Framework Committee of the Analytics Association of the Philippines (AAP), the enabling organization formed to take the lead in driving the growth and evolution of Analytics and other emerging Analytics-enabled disciplines in the Philippines. To know more about the AAP and its causes, visit www.aap.ph or email AAP at [email protected].