EMDA Big Data Analysis Awards 2014

The first Big Data Analysis (BDA) Awards 2014 was organized by The China & Hong Kong Enterprie Market Development Association (EMDA) on 20th Dec 2014. CityU Engineering Doctorate EngD (EM) Society was one of supporting organizations.

EngD Society members took a photo before the award ceremony.
(Left: I, Mr. Pang Yuen (Managing Director, APAC, Chalet Tech), Dr. Rocky Lam (Chairman, EMDA), Dr. TW Liu and Ms. Pheony Tsang (Alumni Relations Manager, CityU))

Then we also met Dr. David Chung (CEO, Cyberport).

In the beginning, Mr. Nicholas Yang (Executive VP, PolyU) gave a welcome speech. He said Big Data is a big topic and a key factor to drive economic growth. Big Data has 5V included Volume, Velocity, Variety, Veracity and Value. EMDA observed the needs of Big Data application for Hong Kong and Mainland.

Mr. Daniel Lai (BBS, JP, HK Government CIO) was our honourable VIP guest and he gave us a keynote speech. He said Big Data could improve our decision capability through connected human behavior. Big Data Analysis is a technology for next decade which could help government to provide better service to public. Mr. Lai said Data is key component of Big Data so that government will provide more Public Sector Information (PSI) data for public research use.

Dr. Rocky Lam (Chairman, EMDA) explained why EMDA formed Big Data analysis (BDA) award. It aimed (i) to recognize the enterprises who adopt BDA to discover new opportunities in business, operations, sports and academic areas; (ii) to raise the support for innovative BDA non-commercial projects for helping the academic research and social responsibility; and (iii) to promote the innovative and creative of BDA capability in the community.

Then Dr. Rocky Lam briefed some BDA collaboration research projects in different field under different university in Hong Kong.

Group photo of all guests and awardees

BDA Award to Winning Enterprises sharing session
The first award named BDA Award 2014 on Volume of Mass Transportation and the winner was MTR. Ir. Ted Suen (Head of IT, MTR Corporation) shared their big data analysis implementation experience. Their aim was “Transform the DATA into KNOWLEDGE, and enable the decision maker to make the RIGHT DECISION in a SHORT time”.

BDA is very important because of more than 11M fare transactions every day. MTR needed to analyze Patronage & Revenue Patterns, Train Loading Pattern, Marketing, and Customer Service. Finally, Mr. Suen concluded BDA could help MTR to improve customer services, operation efficiency, and deliver a safe, reliable and comfortable MTR services to their customers.

Crystal Group was the winner on BDA Award 2014 on Manufacturing. The representative of Crystal Group shared their BDA strategy on OEM/ODM in garment industry. They had 17 production bases in 5 countries. In order to speed the decision process, they raised a concept named Crystal Land (or called Castle in the Sky/天空之城) which employed cloud computing.

It identified 5 benefits using BDA included managing huge workforce, easy access on information in single cloud platform, empowered by the latest technologies, better customer service and effective manpower planning. It concluded BDA transforming data into Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom through effective information management and support mass users.

The winner of BDA Award 2014 on Retails was Sa Sa International Holdings Ltd. The representative shared their experience to use Big Data in retail industry. They had 600 brands with 15000 items. Their data collection is more difficult than MTR because of walk-in customers (not fix). However, they needed timely information for making business decision. They combined ERP systems data with user interactive data for business analysis included what if analysis, so as to provide one-stop shopping experience. Sa Sa has employed Big Data Analysis since 2003 (SARS incident).

The winner of BDA Award 2014 on Veracity was Yee Fung Polyfoam Ltd. They employed BDA to solve their key problem included scheduling and production planning. After employed BDA called Fuzzy Production Scheduling System (FPSS), Knowledge Discovery Classification Module (KDCM) and Fuzzy Scheduling Module, they improved the effectiveness of production planning and scheduling.

During the tea break, I met our CityU Eminence Society (CityUES) founding members. We took a group photo for memory.
(Left: Dr. TW Liu, Ms. Pheony Tsang, Dr. David Chung (CityUES), I (CityUES), Dr. Rocky Lam (CityUES), Mr Chan Yung Brave (Vice Chairman, CityUES), Mr Hui Hing-tak Simon (Chairman, CityUES), and Dr. Rocky Lam (CityUES))

I also met Mr. Paul Li (President of Transland Shipping (1971) Group and Exco member of Hong Kong Sea Transport and Logistics Association)
(Left: Mr. Paul Li, Dr. Rocky Lam and I)

Luckily, I met my family member Mr. Eric C.H. Lai (Senior Account Manager-General Business, Oracle System HK Ltd.).

After tea break, Mr. Gordon Lo (Director, Business Management, HKPC) was guest speaker and he presented “Big Data Insight”. He quoted Kenneth Cukier’s report in the Economist entitled “Data, Data Everywhere”. Internet created many huge data every 60 seconds and different companies doing “Acquisition”, “Marshalling”, “Analysis” and “Action” on Big Data.

The following diagram showed more description on 5Vs of Big Data.

Mr. Gordon Lo showed a table ranked the result employed Big Data to enhance customer experience was No. 1 and Process efficiency was No. 2.

Mr Hui Hing-tak Simon is the founder of E.P.S.A. Corporation and his company won the BDA Award 2014 on Velocity. Mr Chan Yung Brave presented the award to Mr. Simon Hui.

Mr. Simon Hui briefed the history of E.P.S.A Corporation from whole sell to retail transformation. Now, they have 19 stores. BDA was employed in their Market Survey, Customer Relationship Management, Product Innovation and Design, Product Ordering, Inventory Control, Profitability Analysis, Sales Management and Business Operations Productivity. Finally, Mr. Simon Hui concluded that BDA could help the company more easy to capture the market trend and customer requirement, as well as, to improve in the efficiency of operations.

RFID Lab., ISE Dept, PolyU and ATR Lab., Shenzhen University win the BDA Award 2014 on Research Application. Prof. Zhang Yong (ATR Lab) briefed their project named “WeSearch” which allowed locating user’s position and posting status through connecting to the Internet by mobile network or WiFi. It was divided into 5 parts included Client, Network, Communication Server, Database Server, Positioning Terminal.

The BDA Award 2014 on Variety winner was Sino Parking Services Ltd. The Big Data-based Advanced Automobile Parking Navigation System was employed by Sino Parking that aimed to develop and implement an end-to-end total parking solution improving service quality and to alleviate the Hong Kong busy traffic condition by enhancing the transparency of parking vacancy information. The project achievements and benefits were found on 5Vs in BDA.

The BDA Award 2014 on Value of Business Discovery winner was GRI Group Ltd. Global Retail Inc. (GRI) is a leading International apparel and accessories brand-management and retail-distribution network. After using BDA through Membership Management Dashboard, some effective actions performed after using BDA which focused on targeted customer. One two fashion shows were covered the investment on BDA software design and implementation.

HK Express Airways Ltd was winner of BDA Award 2014 on Air Freight. HK Express is first and only low-cost carrier (LCC) in Hong Kong. They used System Integration to enhance operation efficiency. After employed BDA, some improvements obtained such as accurate daily sales, forward bookings and revenue, group tracking and detailed route information, as well as, quickly check updated status of all future flights. It was concluded that BDA were keys to success in the two analytic capabilities per Gartner’s 2014 October Report – Predictive (What will happen) and Prescriptive (What needs to be done).

The last BDA Award 2014 on Food & Beverage was Tao Heung Group Ltd. Dr. David Chung presented the award to Tao Heung’s representative.

Tao Heung Group Ltd. was Chinese restaurant group and to promote Chinese food culture. They employed BDA in Velocity (e.g. Real-time data for top 10 sellers), Veracity (e.g. current 3 years data with 100% transactions data for performance evaluation) and Value (e.g. Time segment, kitchen performance by types and VIP room sales). They found two types of benefits below.
Immediately: Transparent view of business, more turn of table and inventory,
Intermediately: Continuous operation improvement and measure market spread.

At the end, Mr. Keith Wu (Vice Chairman, EMDA) gave closing remark. He concluded the award presentation into three points.
i) In 5Vs of Big Data, first 4Vs cause the last V (Value).
ii) Big Data included our basic necessities - clothing, food, housing and transportation (衣食住行).
iii) EMDA collaborated with universities in Hong Kong employed Big Data in society to create a better world.

Reference:
EMDA - http://www.hkemda.org/
Engineering Doctorate (Engineering Management) - http://www.cityu.edu.hk/seem/pdf/EngD_Leaflet.pdf
CityU Engineering Doctorate Society - http://www.engd.org/