Review a local e-commerce site

For those UTAR’s students from Sabah and Sarawak, they should familiar with this website http://www.airasia.com/. Most of the local customers like to fly with Air Asia plane because it provide a clear information and low price to the customers and it contribute a concept to everyone, which is “Everyone can Fly".

AirAsia.com is a milestone in Malaysian website development. Its existence drives the uptake of broadband Internet services in the country, which means people get connected to the Internet because they want to use AirAsia.com to buy flight tickets or book vacations.

On the home page, red color website and four stewardesses make more attractive and friendly to customers. Besides, it is very care about those users that from different level, different background and those use different language so it provides different language to be selected by the customers. It makes them feel more comfortable by using their own language. It always have advertise promotion appear in the web page, so the customer will know the latest promotion price or packages.

Moreover,thesearch engine for ticketing services provided by AirAsia.com is useful and specific. It has the option of “single or return” flight. It then requires customers to key in the origin and destination that customers are planning to go. Then customers keys in the date that of the departure and arrival of their flight, and choose the numbers of tickets they which to book. The search engine will then scope down to the tickets that are available from the information that customers provided. It is very convenient to customers because it provide availability of search engine to find the particular information.

In the booking categories, it also provides more information about the way of online payment. Through the shopping chat, Air Asia offers a choice of credit cards to fit the needs of your lifestyle in different countries such as Air Asia-Citibank Credit Card and Air Asia-Citibank Gold Card are offer for Malaysia guest. Besides that, the website also helps the customers calculate the total payment which include the tax or charges and transfer to the relevant currency which customers choose.

Other than booking flight ticket, it also provides other related links which allow customers to book hotel and rent car through online. Moreover, Air Asia also provides latest news about the famous places in the travel services categories. The most amazing is, this website provides the link to the medical too. There are more service listed in the website which includes boarding express, further request, check and change fare, route map, and others.

On conclusion, Air Asia’s website gives a clean interface, the step by step booking procedure and a lot of convenient services this might lead more customers to book its tickets.

Related Link:

http://www.reviewstream.com/reviews/?p=30960

http://www.hygen.net/main/index.php?q=node/15

http://www.airasia.com/site/my/EN/page.jsp?name=Company+Profile&id=75dbf230-ac1e2082-29962900-ae960618&nav=5-0

E-Government in Malaysia : Its implementation so far and citizen’s adoption strategies

The implementation of Electronic Government (e-government) started since the initiation of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) in 1996 by the Malaysia Government. It was launched to lead the country into the Information Age. E-government is the use of IT and e-commerce to provide access to government information and delivery of public services to citizens and business partners and enable the government to become more responsive to the needs of its citizens. For example, www.malaysia.gov.my is the myGovernment Portal which acts as the one-stop source of Malaysian government information and services for the citizens.

There are seven pilot projects of the Electronic Government Flagship Application are as follows:

1. Project Monitoring System (SPP II)

2. Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)

3. Generic Office Environment (GOE)

4. Electronic Procurement (EP)

5. Electronic Services (E-Services)

6. Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX)

7. E-Syariah

Besides, e-Filing is an application on filling and filing income tax returns electronically via the internet, which is an alternative to the usual manual from submission. E-government also includes Renewal of road tax online.

MyEG Services Berhad is a company that provides electronic link between the government and the public. With just a minimal fee by the service provider, it is available exclusively from Motortakaful.

Citizen’s Adoption Strategies
The challenge of implementation of e-government in Malaysia is the new technological challenge. Malaysians are concerned about the security of doing transaction over the internet and this resulted in low usage of e-government services due to several problems using E-government.

Firstly, E-government is not very user-friendly especially to the senior citizens who are not expert in technology materials which make them hard to perform the E-Government service. Besides that, there are few complaints about the responds given by the E-Government which is not very effective and is incomparable with some private institutions. Moreover, a lot of them is encountering hacking problem which their personal data was stolen.

In order to solve the problems above, firstly, the government should distribute a user guide to those senior citizens so that they can refer to the user guide when they encounter problems by using E-Government application. Secondly, the government should encourage their family members to teach the senior citizen in their family on how to use operate the system. Thirdly, the government should improve the effectiveness on the respond given to the user by making references from other source. Lastly, the government should strengthen the security so that the hackers are not able to hack into the consumers' personal data. In short, implementing good strategies must be addressed carefully. Otherwise, e-government will remain misleading.

Related link:

www.malaysia.gov.my

www.myeg.com.my

http://www.mait.com/admin/enews_images/MAIT%20Country%20Intelligence%20eNews96_37.pdf

Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

Nowadays, blogging really grew from a popular teenager pastime to corporate requirement. Many of my friends have their own blogging website to record their daily life. It just likes an e-dairy that can let other people to know how are you recently. Furthermore, many companies also will use blogging to promote their companies transfer information to their customer or public. It is known as corporate blog.

A corporate blog is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. It is giving established companies and to have the ability to connect with their audiences on a more personal level, build trust, collect valuable feedback and foster strengthened business relationships. More importantly, these companies are enjoying tangible returns in their blogging investment in the form of increased sales, partnership, business opportunities, press coverage and lead generation. Besides that, it can be categorized to internal blogging and external blogging.

The advantages of corporate blogging are:

(a) Build rapport with customer. Through the publish of a corporate blog, the company gives their customer channel to interact and get to know their brand and organization in a format in a that they are familiar and comfortable with.

(b) Marketing medium. Apart from just being a means of communication, blogs can also be effectively used as a marketing tool. You can advertise and give information about your products through blog. Moreover, u can also provide links to your websites to increase your internet traffic.

(c) Recruitment tool. Blogs can act as good direct recruitment tool and can save you money you spend on hiring consultants, you can use the business blogs to educate the potential employees about job opportunities asking them for references.

(d) Feedback tool. You can use the blogs to receive feedback from internal and external parties effectively. Be it about work culture, blogs give people a chance to voice their opinions, grievances, and feedback. Blogs can be pretty effective when it comes to capturing people’s general feelings about the company, its policies, work culture etc

.

Blogging makes a lot of sense in the business world and can act as an effective communication medium and can earn a greater revenue to your company. Moreover, senior officials can use blogging to keep in touch with employees on a regular basis. All in all, blog has become more than a way to express personal opinion and share experiences. It has become one of the most effective mediums to reach out to people who matter.

Related links:

http://www.backbonemedia.com/blogsurvey/23-advantages-corporate-blog.htm

http://www.enterpriseblogs.info/corporate-blogging/advantages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog

A discussion on E-learning offered in Malaysian universities: Pros and Cons from students perspective

E-learning as communication and learning activities involved ICT such as coaching from e-mail, online research, online discussion through computers via networked interactivity. E-learning’s strategies were introduced at University Technology Malaysia (UTM), University Tun Abdul Razak (UNITAR), Multimedia University (MMU) and the Open University of Malaysia (OUM).

Pros of e-learning

Efficiency

Students are able to reduce travel cost and save time to and from school.The digital library has huge amount of information and up-to-dated material.Therefore, they may have the option to select needs of learning materials that meets their level of knowledge and interest.

Effectiveness

Student’s class work can be scheduled around personal and professional work because they can use electronic assessment which they can learn from online quizzes. It shows that the multimedia improves the skill of learning, creates unlimited learning opportunities for student to gain knowledge and improve understanding.

Flexibility

Students can study wherever they have access to a computer and internet. Hence, they are flexible to join discussions in the bulletin board and discussion areas at any hours. They can visit with classmates and instructors remotely in chat rooms. This module allows them to learn at their own pace.

Other Benefits

It enables students to learn ICT, technology or computing skills. As a result, they have benefits of career-enhancement that they can obtain extra knowledge for future career. The computer-based courses build self-knowledge, self-confidence and analytical mind since they are more thoughtful online than traditional classroom.

Cons of e-learning

Technology

Slow or unreliable internet connections can be frustrating because problem of limited bandwidth. It requires new skills to adapt in content producers. It also difficult for faculty to switch e-learning environment by hand when they need to conduct laboratory experiments

Lack of face-to-face contact

Student may feel isolated or miss social interaction because there are no human teacher expression and explanation. The instructor may not always be available that causes lack of immediate feedbacks for them. They felt lonely because they could not observe non-verbal communication from others and therefore found it hard to work in online groups with others.

Personal Issues

It requires more responsibility and self-discipline for students, especially unmotivated or with poor study habits students may fall behind. Sometimes,they hard to find time for studying as lack of familiar structure and routine daily.

Other Limitations

Students have difficulties to ensure academic honesty in an online environment. It creates unlimited learning stresses for students and tutors as there are simply too many online learning materials. It becomes lack of contextual understanding because of non-standardized materials.

Wall-E Learning Laptop

Related link:

http://www.asianjde.org/2006v4.1.Wong.pdf

http://www.about-elearning.com/e-learning-advantages-and-disadvantages.html

Mobile Payment Systems in Malaysia: Its potentials and consumers' adoption strategies

Mobile payment systems have been developed in recent years to facilitate purchases of products, services, and electronic commerce at physical points of sale. Nowadays, consumers used relatively inexpensive mobile phones as digital cameras, personal audio players, date books, games, calculators, and clocks.

Maxis FastTap is an integrated mobile payment service established under a partnership with Nokia, Visa, Maybank and Touch ‘n Go. Customers who sign up can use the Nokia 6212 classic device that the NFC (Near Field Communication) system allows users to purchase goods and services at Visa payWave merchant locations for paying toll, parking and theme park charges.

In Malaysia there are several companies that launched mobile payment systems such as Celcom, Maxis, Digi, TMtouch, Maybank, Paypal, Mobile Money International Sdn Bhd and mobileExec Sdn Bhd.

There are several strategies for consumer and its potentials:

Complexity

Complexity and problems with usability have contributed to identify the low adoption of different payment systems, including smart cards and mobile banking. The easy of using has affected consumer adoption of Internet payments and WAP financial services that make purchases and for merchants to receive payments using a mobile phone. Mobile payments are expected to increase consumer convenience by reducing the need for coins and cash in small transactions and increasing the availability of purchase possibilities.

Costs

The cost of a payment transaction has a direct effect on consumer adoption if the cost is passed to customers. The consumer’s intention to WAP(Wireless Application Protocol) shopping shows the strongest characteristic that differentiates the high and low intention groups was price consciousness. As shoppers in electronic channels are considerate to transaction costs of mobile payments should be low enough to make the total cost of the purchase competitive with world prices.

Payment system security and trust in payment systems providers

Nowadays, consumers show sensitive awareness to security and privacy issues. Hence, key requirements for secure financial transactions in electronic environment include confidentiality, data integrity, authentication and non-repudiation. Other security factors important for consumer adoption are anonymity and privacy which relates to use policies of customer's personal information and purchase records

Ownership of the Customer Relationship

Wireless carriers, financial institutions, and card associations must decide who owns the customer relationship, including the billing and collection process. It is important to determine the selected models that satisfy the customer. The parties should have a clear understanding of consumer preferences that should be a key consideration in the decision‐making process. For example, consumers are more comfortable providing financial information to their banks.

NFC Mobile Payment & Promotions

Resource Link:

http://www.telecoms.com/10397/maxis-brings-nfc-payments-to-malaysia

http://www.pcworld.com/article/162850/visa_makes_nfc_payment_commercially_available.html?tk=rss_news

http://project.hkkk.fi/helsinkimobility/papers/Mobile%20Applications_2_3.pdf

Credit Card Debt : Cause and Prevention

Credit card has commonly been used in our life, not only adult but also for student. Undoubtedly, it has given a lot of conveniences to its users. However, in certain circumstances, it creates irritations. Put aside credit card fraud which is a serious crime, the credit card debt has become a severe issue and it is the major cause of bankruptcies each year.

Causes:

Missing payments or late payments
The fastest way to get into credit difficulties is by not repaying the minimum payment required, over the limit fees, high annual percentage rates, and universal default. Debts accumulate increase with interest and penalties for late payment had made the total amount due become larger. Even worse, cardholder will be forced to go bankrupt.

Poor money management
Poor money management is one of the best reasons why so many families accumulate lots of debt. Not having a monthly spending plan and not keeping track of the monthly bills makes one unaware of where the money is going. While the money is going towards purchasing useless items, he might need charging the necessary purchases on credit card.

No saving cushion
When people using credit cards, they would like to use the future money and have not extra money to save in bank. When people are spending more than their income, they will be very hard to manage their savings accounts. Besides, the important topics such as saving and investing one’s personal finances are not taught in school. People who are lack of such knowledge may easily become the next victim of credit card debt.

Prevention:

Making a budget or financial planning
The first step in setting up a budget is determining your monthly income and needed expenses. As part of these monthly expenses, figure in 5-10% of your income to set aside for emergencies, long range savings such as a retirement account and short term savings. This can help us to perceive that we will not overspending our budget that we have set before and prevent from the debts. Use the card to obtain a purchase that you can afford provided you can pay off the cost over time or spend by using a debit card.

Pay on time
Punctually make the payment to anyone include car and house payments to avoid raising your interest rate if you are late paying any creditors. Besides, you need to pay at least more than required minimum payment for emergency fund or you can set up a Direct Debit for the minimum amount as much as possible of the remaining balance to keep it low.

Early education
The best method for prevention is teaching your younger generation all about money before they even qualify for a credit card. Let they know the causes well and how to effectively manage their financial by using the credit card. Related Link:

http://www.novanthealth.org/eap/daily_issues/credit_card_debt.jsp

http://www.credit-land.com/articles/articles_page_68600_1881780_120.php

http://www.ehow.com/how_2038727_avoid-credit-card-debt.html?