On another note, most of the OR in the last decade or so has concentrated on large-scale operations - airlines, vehicle routing, inventory for large corporations. Do you guys think OR has any chance in the small business world? Could OR help the your neighborhood gourmet coffee shop (not starbucks, they probably have internal OR consultants), or that fashion boutique down the street?
After all, it used to be only the big companies used to be able to advertise in media and reach mass customers. But then internet and Google came along and small businesses could participate too. So it's not entirely unthinkable.
P.S. - Why am I not able to post questions but able to reply? I wanted to post this reply as a separate question originally...
