The quick service, or fast food, restaurant industry is a major contributor to the Philippines’ food and service sector, with more than $7 billion in sales in 2023 accounting for more than 56% of the total revenues in the sector (USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, 2024; Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 2025). The industry is anchored in the principle of fast service. However, customer feedbacks show that the lowest customer rating is attributed to its service (Bacani et. al, 2006; Figure 2).

According to Bacani et al. (2006), the main problem in the service is attributed to service responsiveness, with an average satisfaction level of 3.6 out of 5. Similarly, a survey for this study asked the respondents to rate their fast food restaurant of choice in the Philippines (Figure 2). The categories to be rated include food, value, cleanliness, service, and location. Among the categories, the service got the lowest rating of 4.01 out of 5 from 129 respondents.

It is not difficult to see the problem in the store. During rush hours, it is normal to see long queues of customers at the cashiers’ counter to place their orders. To address this issue, in 2018, fast food stores in the Philippines started introducing the self-ordering kiosk (SOK) (Rappler.com, 2018). The SOK is a touch-screen display, menu, and point-of-sale (POS) where customers can select and place their orders, and pay using cashless options, such as e-wallets, debit cards, or credit cards, instead of queuing at the cashier’s counter. The solution aims to increase the store’s capacity to receive and process orders without additional cashiers. With the use of the SOK, some stores reduced their cashiers at the counter, which allows them to help in order preparation to reduce the overall order waiting time. This, however, did not help in easing the customer queuing. It simply moved the queues from the cashier counters to the SOKs. In instances when the customers using the SOK are not familiar with the equipment or how the menu items are organized, placing an order in a SOK can take longer than speaking with a cashier, which makes the queues move more slowly. According to Stanley et. al (2023), orders placed via the SOK make customers wait longer.

This study proposes a digital approach to the order-taking process in fast food stores by leveraging the use of the customers’ mobile phones, which will allow them to place their orders at the table to prevent customer queues at the cashier counter or the SOK. Each table in the restaurant will have a printed quick-read (QR) code attached, which will be easily visible to the customers. The table QR code will contain a unique ID to identify which table the order is placed in.

As the customers enter the restaurant, they can go and sit at any available table. While seated, the customers will use their mobile phones to scan the QR code on their table. The QR code will either open the restaurant’s mobile application, if it is installed in the customer’s phone, or the restaurant’s online ordering portal. In the app or portal, the customers can navigate the restaurant’s menu, place their orders, and pay.

The restaurant’s app or portal can also be used to place takeaway orders for pick-up. However, drive-through orders must be placed as takeaway orders if customers want to avoid the vehicle queues because most, if not all, fast food restaurants’ drive-through spaces are very limited, and there’s no room to skip over other vehicles.

Allowing the customers to place their orders while seated will lessen the customer queues at the restaurant. This also puts the customers at ease as soon as they enter the establishment, which should reflect as a service improvement. Using the customer’s mobile phone will not require additional store equipment and floor space, similar to SOKs, which makes it a more cost-effective solution.

In the customer service industry, customer feedback provides rich insights that can benefit BPO companies seeking to continuously improve the processes and services for end customers. However, these insights are often underutilized due to the lack of efficient analysis solutions. Traditional methods are manual, time-consuming, and prone to human error, resulting in an average of 480 seconds of scrubbing time per comment.

This capstone aims to develop an AI-powered solution to automate and enhance the analysis of each DSAT comment received and classify it into the DSAT attributes present in the customer’s comment using Microsoft Power Platform. The solution incorporates features such as sentiment analysis, and multiple custom RAG-based prompts that power the AI automated classification process.

The testing results show a 96.85% reduction in processing time from 480 seconds to 15.1 seconds per comment, significantly reducing the scrubbing time and improving the leader’s accessibility to the insights. This enables faster execution of action plans to address the opportunities identified by the solution. The AI-driven DSAT VOC scrubbing solution promotes scrubbing at scale, where BPO companies can continuously harness unstructured feedback data to drive service delivery, customer satisfaction, and innovation.

This study examined how AI-driven microlearning would shape the leadership development of newly promoted managers in fully virtual consulting firms over the next 2 to 3 years. Grounded in technology foresight, the study applied Prof. Glen Imbang’s Ten-Stage Scenario Building Model to explore multiple AI adoption pathways and their organizational implications. The scenarios address key uncertainties such as AI trust, regulatory constraints, and the balance between automation and human mentorship. The study identified key predictable variables, critical uncertainties, and scenario logics that shaped four distinct scenarios: AI-Optimized Leadership Development, Human-AI Hybrid Model, AI Hesitation and Virtual Leadership Gaps, and AI Adoption with Compliance Bottlenecks. The findings highlighted that while AI-based microlearning enhances training scalability and personalization, its effectiveness depends on cultural acceptance, governance frameworks, and alignment with leadership models. The study contributed a strategic foresight framework to guide virtual consulting firms in integrating AI for leadership development while preserving human-centered capabilities essential to long-term organizational success.

This study explores the integration of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) into a proposed onshore wind energy project in Mindoro Province using technology foresight. With Mindoro’s continued energy insecurity and off-grid status, the study positions wind-BESS systems as a strategic response. Using ten-stage scenario-building, the research identifies key predictable variables and critical uncertainties that influence BESS adoption in the wind energy project.

The study relies on qualitative research methods, with insights from stakeholders across the renewable energy value chain, including project developers, transmission engineers, sustainability consultants, and policy advisors. Through structured environmental scanning (PESTLE), stakeholder surveys, and scenario building, two distinct scenarios were developed: one where Mindoro emerges as a renewable energy hub exporting to the national grid, and another where localized deployment prevails due to infrastructure limitations.

Further, SWOT analysis and scenario assessment provide insights and recommendations for the industry stakeholders.

By offering analysis grounded in stakeholder realities and frameworks, this study contributes to ongoing efforts to scale renewable energy solutions in off-grid settings, to align with national energy transition goals.

Preventing foodborne illnesses and ensuring hygienic conditions remain a public health concern in developing countries like the Philippines. Poverty is still a major factor that affects access to safe food. Meat based products were identified as the most common food vehicle for foodborne illness outbreaks. In order to address these challenges in the entire supply-chain, from farm to fork, the food industry is assessing the potential benefits of implementing artificial intelligence solutions. This study employed technology foresight through a 10-stage scenario building methodology to develop future scenarios and evaluate the key factors that can significantly affect the artificial intelligence adoption in the Philippines food industry. The common food safety challenges and the potential role of artificial intelligence in enhancing food safety in the next 3 to 5 years was discussed in this paper. Four future scenarios were developed by the researcher which can help food manufacturers, artificial intelligence technology suppliers, and the government in making sound decisions and strategies. This will aid in successfully integrating artificial intelligence solutions in the food manufacturing set-up.