Norjansalika Janom

Micro Sourcing Strategic Framework for Low Income Group

The role of ICTs among poor people and communities has increased tremendously. One of the ICT industries – the micro sourcing industry – has been identified as one of a potential industry to help increase income for the poor in Malaysia. Micro sourcing is an effective way to accomplish tedious tasks at a faster rate. It involves large projects that are broken down into micro tasks. These micro tasks are well-defined and then distributed to a group of workers. The objective of this study is to develop the strategic framework of micro sourcing to generate income for the low income group. Four methods were used to gather information for this study. The methods used were documentation and literature reviews, focus group meetings, workshops and interviews. Based on the analysis of the current scenario of local micro sourcing industry, strategic framework was developed based on the five Strategic Thrusts identified. The Strategic Thrusts are harnessing demand side (job providers) of domestic and international market; platform capacity and capability building; leverage and utilise existing infrastructure; uplift and enhance capability of the supply side (micro workers); and instruments to expedite growth of local micro sourcing industry. The Strategic Framework is intended to provide strategic direction at national level to all stakeholders; to highlight key areas that need to be addressed in order to grow a sustainable micro sourcing industry in the country; and to serve as a guideline in the implementation of programs and plans related to micro sourcing industry development

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) implementation: A soft issue in knowledge management scenario

Knowledge Management (KM) implementation is mainly linked to soft issues such as organizational culture and people. Recently, most organizations are struggling to effectively use KM tools and techniques. Previous study shows that there is a relationship between KM and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). KM, in particular, has been defined as the process of capturing the collective expertise and intelligence in an organization and using them to foster innovation through continued organizational learning whereas obtaining customer-related knowledge is specified as the means to attain CRM objectives. Since a major part of that expertise and intelligence refers to customers, it is concluded that CRM is strongly related to KM and especially to customer knowledge management. CRM is a combination of people, processes and technology that seeks to understand a companys customers. CRM has evolved from advances in information technology and organizational changes in customer centric processes. Managing a successful CRM implementation requires an integrated and balanced approach to technology, processes and people. This paper discuss about the implementation of CRM in Research and Development Centers of Public Universities in Malaysia. The purpose of this study is to investigate the current scenario of CRM implementation Research and Development Centers of Public Universities in Malaysia and what are their challenges in its implementation. This study has conducted the structured interview session with top management of eight public universities. Besides, a questionnaire was distributed to the R & D staffs in those eight public universities. Statistical analysis was carried out on data collected from 40 completed questionnaires. Descriptive analysis and correlation test has been performed to investigate the hypotheses. This study indicates that organization CRM knowledge has a relationship with organizational issues such as human, culture, financial and technology issues. Suggestions as to what future research should indicate are also made.

B2B E-commerce: Frameworks for e-readiness assessment

This paper looks into the development of e- readiness model for B2B e-commerce of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Drawing on existing research on e-readiness models of ICT (information, Communications Technology) specifically B2B e-commerce technologies, this paper formulates a conceptual framework of B2B e-commerce assessment constructs together with the specific research approach towards the development of a more robust e-readiness model. The research presents a conceptual model and framework that highlight the key factors in B2B e-commerce implementation, index score formulations, focus group evaluations and the recommendation approaches to improve B2B e-commerce readiness.

Crowdsourcing: The Trend of Prior Studies

Crowdsourcing is view as major changes in current economy as it has revolutionary effects on organizations. Unlike previous outsourcing trends that practices closed inter-organizational relationships subject to the long-term legal contract, these new crowdsourcing practices take place in an open and virtual context, characterized with small and short-term deals. Crowdsourcing has been recognized as new industry that able to uplift the economy and bring significant benefits to business and people in general. Although the phenomenon of crowdsourcing is fairly new and still in a formative stage, the indications and predictions are optimistic. Under the recent Malaysian government initiatives called Digital Malaysia, various crowdsourcing efforts and programs have been introduced. This paper reports on the review of prior studies pertaining crowdsourcing from a general view.

The empirical evaluation of B2B e-commerce stages in agro based industry

This paper seeks to contribute to the development of business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce readiness assessment model for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in agro-based industry, using the integrated framework of individual-organizational-environmental theory. The integrated perspectives of individual-organizational-environmental approach provide a holistic view of organization readiness in preparing themselves for B2B e-commerce. The assessment model developed involves several distinct stages that capture key elements of B2B ecommerce implementation readiness. Drawing on mixed methods approach of sequential exploratory design, the exploratory investigation through a small scale survey using questionnaire is used, where SMEs readiness and initiatives are assessed to provide an overall picture regarding the strengths and weakness of organization capabilities in implementing the B2B e-commerce technology. The findings and analysis gathered also provide a realistic and practical interpretation of the characteristics of SMEs under each readiness dimension.

Quality factors of crowdsourcing system: Paper review

Crowdsourcing is defined as a process where company distributes tasks online publicly to anonymous people over the Internet to complete the task. It has opened up opportunities for supply and demand for employment via the Internet. One of the major issues, however, is the quality of products and services delivered through the Internet. This issue needs to be addressed seriously as the demands for high-quality products and services have become crucial in todays highly competitive marketplace and fast moving technologies. Thus, in this paper, we explore and analyze how the task affected by the three main components of crowdsourcing: Job Provider, Crowd Workers, and Platform. Analyzing quality factors based on these three components is crucial as these components determine the success of the crowdsourcing system. The result of the analysis is hoped to be useful in improving the quality of crowdsourcing industry particularly in Malaysia.

Business model of crowdsourcing: Review paper

Crowdsourcing is a new wave of outsourcing which has become a new society paradigm that might change the outsourcing landscape in the future. Crowdsourcing offers substantial benefits to the involved parties. For crowdworkers, crowdsourcing offers flexibility in terms of time, locations and durations of doing tasks given to them and the most important is crowdsourcing will give them additional income to complement existing income that will help them to uplift their lifestyle. To organizations, crowdsourcing offers access to pool of talents or skills from all over the world which would not be economically feasible to maintain in-house or acquire out of house. In addition, faster execution as the tasks can be completed without having to hire or/ and train new employees. Since crowdsourcing is considered as a new business concept which involves different integrations of crowd worker, job provider and crowdsourcing web based platform, proper crowdsourcing initiatives need to be strategically planned and evaluated. Hence, this study will look into one of crowdsourcing important part which is crowdsourcing business model. Business models are very crucial as it will explain a plan for the successful operation of a business, identifying sources of revenue, the intended customer base, products, and details of financing. This paper reviews the existing business model of crowdsourcing and critical analysis for each business model.

A preliminary study for critical success factors of micro sourcing in Malaysia

Micro sourcing is the act of outsourcing small or micro task to the crowd. During recent years, commercial micro sourcing has become a successful business model. Micro sourcing initiative in Malaysia is still nascent. The implementation is targeted to B40 group; those with low income household. This study is attempted to identify the critical success factor of micro sourcing initiative on the industry level and to identify the weights of each critical success factors in order to determine the priority of each of them. Interview has been conducted with Micro sourcing to Generate Income for the B40 committee member. Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to set critical success factors priority. Results show the reputation system, the ease of use of technology and provide training to the micro workers as the most imperative critical success factors related with success of micro sourcing in Malaysia. In the future, this study should involve the participation from stakeholders such as micro workers, platform owner and organizations.

B2B e-commerce readiness assessment indicators based on the critical success factors

The main aim of this paper is to generate understanding of the range of internal and external factors which impact the Business-to-business electronic commerce (B2B EC) development of the smaller firms in agro- based industry. Drawing on existing research on e- readiness models of information, communications and technology (ICT) specifically B2B EC technologies, this paper formulates a conceptual model of B2B EC assessment constructs together with the specific research approach towards the development of a more robust electronic readiness (e- readiness) model. The research presents a conceptual model that highlights the key indicators of the B2B EC implementation based on individual, organizational and environmental dimensions.

Crowdsourcing business model for low income community: Conceptual model

In todays world, companies support many of their business processes by outsourcing tasks or jobs to third-party providers located all over the world. The trend of outsourcing recently is to use Internet as the main sourcing platform. The latest trend of outsourcing is crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing has similar concept of outsourcing, but instead of outsource to business, crowdsourcing will outsource the task or job to a group of people or community. Nowadays, community is facing great challenge in uplifting and maintaining their lifestyle and mostly due to issues regarding employment. It is reported that the greatest issues facing developing countries is a growing population in need of employment. Due to that issue, world are facing flood of low income community. Crowdsourcing is one potential solution to the issues and opportunities present globally today. Considering the advantages of crowdsourcing, the concept has been implemented in many developing countries such as India, Nepal and Philippines. The main aim of this paper is to generate understanding related to crowdsourcing business model factors which impact the low income community. Drawing on existing researches on crowdsourcing business model and low income community, this paper formulates a conceptual model of crowdsourcing business model for low income community. The research presents a conceptual model that highlights the factors of crowdsourcing business model based on crowdsourcer, crowdworker and platform.