Today, in a market full of turbulence, business operations face unforeseen challenges. The most recent events, such as the global outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), also known as the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, have created a huge global crisis in “breaking many global supply chains” as China is commonly viewed as the “world factory”. In fact, as reported by World Economic Forum Global Risks Report (2020):“The global economy is facing an increased risk of stagnation, climate change is striking harder and more rapidly than expected, and fragmented cyberspace threatens the full potential of next-generation technologies” 1. Despite the fact that many sources of risks are uncontrollable by humans, we may be able to sense and respond quickly with the use of data and establish a resilient supply chain system. This is especially critical to humanitarian operations (Ataseven et al. 2018) which respond to disaster and other risks (Apte et al. 2016).

Thanks to the explosive expansion and advances of digital technologies such as smart mobile phones, social media platforms, e-commerce, etc., data are around in every organization. As the analytics capabilities of organizations develop rapidly, artificial intelligence tools, big data analytics, blockchain, etc., are all tools available and being used in the industry. A natural question arises: in light of the highly volatile market environment and unpredictable global economic system, how should organizations, both profit making and non-profit making ones, make use of data analytics to enhance their operational risk management (ORM) practices? This question is a timely and critical one and calls for scientific research from the operations management (OM) community.