E-Commerce in Malaysia

Introduction

            E-commerce is conducted between different businesses – and varies on how the business is carried out between the business and its respective consumers. Basically, there are 5 types of e-commerce: business to business (B2B); business to consumer (B2C); consumer to business (C2C); consumer to consumer (C2C); and business to government (B2G).

            According to the report of IDC, in 2006, Malaysia had recorded a total of US$2.8 billion B2C e-commerce spending, which shows a great increase of 24% from US$1.9 of the prior year. Overall, the e-commerce spending in Malaysia in 2006 was amounted to US$13.6 billion, a vast growth of 77%. The said increase or growth was attributed to the increased number of Internet users, which had reached to 6 million – 4.7 million of which were unique buyer.

References

IDC 2007, IDC Reports 70% Growth in Malaysia E-Commerce Spending in 2006, IDC, http://www.idc.com.my/PressFiles/IDC%20Malaysia%20-%20eCommerce.asp [Accessed 15 December 2009]

The Prospects of E-commerce for The SMEs in Malaysia: Usage of e-commerce by SMEs in MalaysiaMalaysia Internet and E-Commerce Investment and Business Guide: Regulations and Opportunities (World Strategic and Business Information Library)

Advantages of Outsourcing

According to the Outsourcing Institute (1995) outsourcing had become a fully-fledge business megatrend in USA and Europe's industries. Due to globalization, competition had become intensive, thus companies, particularly those in the global market are focusing or obtaining and maintaining competitive advantage. One of which is through outsourcing (Weston, 1996).

Engelke (1996) defined outsourcing as the process of settling on to get hold of a given or selected products or/and services from the external entities from the firm. Thus, it is the process of making use of the knowledge, skills, capabilities, experiences, technologies and even originalities that were not used before (Kraker, 1995).

The advancement and popularity of Information Technology (IT) and communication technology have helped in order to speed up the organizational change. And because of the changes in both macro- and micro-environment of a business, companies focus on continuous change in order to maintain their edge. As a result, outsourcing showed growth for the past decades. The study of Foster (2006) tackled that the outsourcing data centers from 1995 had increased from $180 billion to $420 in 2000. 

The most popular advantage of outsourcing is cost effectiveness and cost savings. This is because financial savings are expected to be made, because the vendors of outsourcing services can offer similar services, which can help them to offer the benefits of economies of scale (Walker and Weber, 1984). These vendors can offer services in high quality and lower prices, because they just focus on specific specialist and all of their financial resources, together with other important resources will be solely used for the benefit of those services. Thus, it follow that outsourcing help to acquire higher quality of services, due to the specialization of the vendors, which consequently connect it to increase in productivity.

Less cost spent in different operational expenses and higher productivity would mean higher profit. Therefore, in the end, outsourcing can help in order to add values to the firm (Alexander and Young, 1996), at the same time, controlling or preventing risks associated to political, social and technological aspect of a specific business unit or process to be outsourced.

References

Alexander, M and Young, D (1996), ‘Outsourcing: Where’s the value?’, Long Range Planning, vol. 29, pp. 728 – 730.

Engelke, W D (1996), ‘The virtual times’, Outsourcing Perspectives, Retrieved from 31^st August, from HSV website.

Foster, E (1996), ‘Outsource sense’, Info World, vol. 8, no. 37.

Kater, M (1995), ‘An outsourcing primer’, Training and Development, vol. 49, no. 11, pp. 20 – 26.

Outsourcing Institute (1995),  ‘Outsourcing: How industry leaders are reshaping the American corporation’, Fortune.

Walker, G and Weber, D (1984), ‘A transaction cost approach to make or buy decisions’, Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 29, pp. 373 – 391.

Weston, R (1996), ‘Its hard to buck the outsourcing tide’, PC Week, p. 1. 

The Black Book of Outsourcing: How to Manage the Changes, Challenges, and OpportunitiesOutsourcing For DummiesThe Outsourcing Handbook: How to Implement a Successful Outsourcing Process

Green Consumerism

The term green consumerism was coined in 1986 by John Elkington - an environmental consultant. Later in 1988, it was launched into the market place via Green Shopping Week and the publication of Green Consumer Guide. The said event created huge impact, which was followed by another promotion in 1989 and other publications which aim on informing and encouraging the consumers to be aware and conscious about the different environmental impact of the products or/and services that they are availing, together with the different manufacturing and production process which are considered as hazardous (Osterhus, 1997). 

The main point of green consumerism is to persuade the consumer to act and pursue political decisions and choices that are connected to their daily consumptions. As time goes by, particularly in the current issues related to global warming, green consumerism had become a vital aspect in social marketing literature, and became and personal ethical orientation, pro-environmental personal values and attitudes which help to form socially conscious and responsible decision-making (Mosainder and Personen, 2002). 

References

Mosainder, J. and Personen, S. (2002). 'Narratives of sustainable ways of living: constructing the self and other as green consumer'. Management Decision. 40(4), 329 - 342.

Osterhus, T. (1997). 'Pro-social consumer influence strategies: When and how do they work?' Journal of Marketing. 61, 16 - 29.

Eco-Standards, Product Labelling and Green Consumerism (Consumption and Public Life)Representation of Green Consumerism: A Constructionist CritiqueGreen Marketing: Opportunity for Innovation, 2nd EditionStella Artois Case Study: tapping into the rise of green and ethical consumerism in alcoholic drinks

Newspaper as a Medium of Advertisement

The use of newspapers is a widely used medium of advertisement in the world. It is ranked as a top media choice when making purchasing decisions on a certain product or service, according to a Scarborough Research of more than 4,500 respondents for the Newspaper Association of America. This study is part of the industry’s multi-million dollar advertisement campaign designed to surprise advertisers with the truth about consumer engagement with the newspaper advertising and the growing reach of newspaper media (Owens, 2006)

Newspaper readers also believe that newspapers provide the most trustworthy and believable advertisements (40%), compared with magazines (30%); television (23%); radio (18%) and the internet (16%). Newspapers help the advertiser to maximize the return by reaching consumers who will almost involve themselves with the advertising message (Owens, 2006).

The study also shows that newspapers were present in the lives of those who considered themselves “non-readers.” According to the study, one third (32 percent) of those who said they did not read a paper in the past seven days said they actually “used” a newspaper in some manner – mostly to check for sales, price items or to use a coupon (Newspaper Association of America, 2006).

References

Owens, S. (2006). 'Newspaper engagement study shows newspapers ads are integral, desired part of newspaper content'. Newspaper Association of America. Retrieved on 28th November, 2010, from http://www.naa.org/

Newspaper Association of America (2006). Newspaper reader engagement. Retrieved on 28th November, 2010 from http://www.naa.org/

The typography of newspaper advertisements,Sphere Newspaper Advertisement 1918 Hats Shoes BarleyVintage Advertisements 1840-1916 [Anthology]