Tec professor gives talk at MIT SCALE Latin America Conference

Camilo Andrés Mora Quiñones, a professor from the School of Engineering and Sciences at Tec de Monterrey’s Santa Fe campus, gave a talk about his research project entitled ‘The coexistence of “nanostores” in the retail ecosystem: A spatial statistical study of Mexico City’ at the MIT SCALE Latin America Conference.

The MIT SCALE Latin America Conference is an international conference to promote cutting-edge scientific research related to logistics and supply chains to tackle the region’s challenges.

The conference promotes collaboration between academics, students, and training partners with the aim of developing high-impact economic, social, and environmental projects.

According to the professor, his presentation focused on research aimed at giving a better understanding of the evolution in retail food store ecosystems in Mexico City over the past decade. 

“The rapid growth of convenience stores and new small supermarket formats has caused speculation about whether traditional stores are going to survive or not,” he explained.

In his talk, he presented results showing that grocery stores, convenience stores and supermarkets will be able to coexist in a metropolis like Mexico City, regardless of inhabitants’ different socioeconomic levels. 

“The evidence shows that not only do people from lower and lower middle socioeconomic levels buy their food in “nanostores”, but also those from upper and upper middle classes.

“This means that purchasing behavior patterns depend rather on the functional benefits provided by different types of stores (e.g. proximity, price, hours),” he pointed out.

The importance of doing research

In practical terms, the professor believes the results of the research invite us to reflect on the importance of doing surveys that provide us with greater understanding of phenomena and not speculating, which encourages better decision-making.

Camilo explained that participating in an MIT conference was a privilege for him.

“It was an exciting and enriching experience because I had the opportunity to attend more than 50 lectures explaining how high-impact scientific and practical projects are being developed in Latin America,” he said.

Finally, the professor invites the Tec community to actively participate in these international events that promote economic, social, and environmental development through logistics and supply chain research, which are organized in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the best university in the world.

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