Review of a local E-commerce site

Blooming Florist Sendirian Berhad is a local company which has its owm site, www.blooming.com.my. The company has started its operation since 1981 by May and Martin Cheah.it allows customers to buy its products and services through the internet. Besides having an online store, Blooming Florist has grown to owned six retail outlets in Petaling Jaya, Kuala Lumpur and a head office cum workshop cum retail outlet in Kelana Jaya.To conduct its service effective and efficient, it has linked with most reliabe florists throughout the world.

The company delivers products such as hand bouguets, basket arrangements, cookies, cakes, wine, hampers, potted plants, pewters, plush toys, and home decorations.

Blooming Florist allows customers to buy and send the particular product to family members or friend located overseas.

For first timers, they can easily know what the company is offering. The site was designed simple with a white background, which able to outstand its product attractively. Products are listed out with their pictures which each able to be enlarge and pictured in different angles.

Moreover to emphasis on customer satisfaction, the company provides refund policy, floral arrangement tips, floral care and so on. There is also a page on FAQs (frequent asked questions) to guide custormers how to place an order, how to register as a member, and other information which normaly a custormer may ask.

The company's site is like other e-commerce site that we may see always on the Internet.

Search Engine
The page provides a search engine to help users to narrow down their findings to only what they are interested to. This able to shorten a customer purchasing prosses. Either than using the search engine, users can also choose to shop by products or by occasions as listed on the left hand side of its home page.

Shopping Cart
"My Shopping Cart" is located on top of the site. The cart is designed to collect a customer's orders at a time. At the end of a customer's shopping, the cart is filled with the total items and the sub total of the customer's purchase. Carts are useful to avoid customers buying lavishly.


Payment System
Customers can make their payments through various ways. They can either choos to pay by using the online credit card, online banking, mobile payment, or cash payment at their retail outlets.

Reference:

• http://www.blooming.com.my/

Prepared by: CHOI LAI YEET

Corporate Blogging : A new marketing communication tool for companies

Corporate blog is generally published and utilized by organizations to reach their desired goals.

Corporate blogs are acting similarly as some mass media such as radio, television, newspapers and so on. They are important to act as an media to deliver the organization’s important messages as well as views.

Although there are many types of corporate blogs, but they are generally categorized into two types, which are the internal and external blogs.

For the internal blogs, they are actually used within the organization. Employees can access and view them via the company intranet. Examples of internal blogs are knowledge and culture blogs. Internal blogs are important to encourage employee participation in company issue discussions, and gain direct access to communication between employees across departments in the organization.

The external blogs are weblog created for the communication of the organization’s stakeholders, such as company employees, groups, and any other parties which are interested in the company. The examples of external blogs are sales, relationship and branding blogs. These blogs actually link and gather all the stakeholders and outsiders to share their opinions and views.

The external blogs play an crucial role as a communication tool for the organization with outsiders. Discussions and sharing of opinions or information about newly launched products are available in these blogs. For instance, the relationship blog is used for creating, upholding and strengthening the relationship between the organization and its related stakeholders.

The implementation of corporate blogging in Stonyfield Farm over in the United States has successfully strengthened its bonds and relationships with its suppliers and customers. Not only that it built customer loyalty, but also boosted the employees’ working efficiency. The internal blogging system had become a very effective tool for the employees inside the company to communicate. On the other hand, the external blogs are very good at sharing its new product information as well as welcoming customers and suppliers to provide feedbacks and the views.




The benefits of corporate blogs include:

i) the posts and comments are easy to reach
ii) all current browsers do support the technology, making viewers can actually gain access to the recent posts without needing to visit the blog.
iii) a corporate blog does not require a high cost to set up. The license fees range from $200 for a single site to $1300 for 50 blogs.

In short, corporate blogging has become an important marketing communication tool for organizations. Each internal and external blog has its own roles and functions in assisiting the organization to achieve its desired goals.



References:

• http://www.corporateblogging.info/basics/corporatebloggingprimer.pdf
• http://www.uwebc.org/opinionpapers/archives/docs/CorporateBlogging.pdf
• http://searchoracle.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid19_gci1081285,00.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog
• http://www.answers.com/corporate+blog?cat=biz-fin

Prepared by : WONG CHEE WAI

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

The implementation of electronic government started since the initiation of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) by Malaysian government. E-government is introduce in order to improve the convenience, accessibility and quality of interaction with citizens and businesses. Other than that, it helps to improve the information flows and processes within government to improve the speed and quality of policy development, coordination and enforcement.

Several implementation of E-government in Malaysia can be described as the following:

(1) Government to Citizens

· Electronic Service Directory (e-services)

With E-services, one now is able to perform transaction with government agencies and utilities payment. For examples, telephone bill (TM Point), electricity bill (Tenaga Nasional Berhad), and Road Transport Department (RTD). The channel of service delivery may include the kiosk machines and internet. One of them is rilek services.

· Electronic Labor Exchange (ELX)
With ELX, Ministry of Human Resource has become a place which enables the employers and job seekers to communicate on the same platform as labor market information and references is available. The main objective of ELX is to ensure that manpower utilization is optimized so that mobilization of nation’s human resources can be improved.

· E-Syariah
E-Syariah applications are consist of Syarie Lawyers Registration System, Library Management System, Syariah Court Case Management System E-Syariah Portal and Office Automation System. It enables the Islamic Affairs Department to improve the management and the effectiveness of its 102 Syariah courts. On the other hand, the judges of Syariah Courts will be able to access the precedent case and the information needed in a particular case in a more rapid manner than before.

(2) Government to Business

· E-Procurement
Suppliers will be able to obtain tender information as well as submitting their bid via internet. Besides, suppliers can sell their product and services to Government via E-Procurement. This is contributing to the transparency and accountability, saved time and money of the suppliers. Thus, it encourages the suppliers to join the K-Economy as they go internet. However, E-Procurement is taken off with the introduction of ePerolehan.

(3) Government to Government

· Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)
HRMIS provide a single interface for the government employees to perform human resource management functions effectively and efficiently in an integrated environment. It provides an up-to-date HR data for effective planning, better communication, effective staffing and right sizing of civil servants.

· Government Office Environment (GOE)
Enterprise-Wide Communication Management System, Enterprise-Wide Collaboration Management System and Enterprise-Wide Information Management System are the elements in GOE. It allowed the fast search and retrieval of documents and collaboration and sharing of information. Preparation and storage of documents in an effective style and secure and traceable access to the documents is permissible.

· Project Monitoring System (PMS)
It is the online system that monitors the entire lifecycle of the national program. Application Service, Communication Service and Data Service are cover under PMS.

Citizens in Malaysia are still reluctant to use the E-Government service as they lack of confidence and trust on the current technology. However, due to the benefits that offered by E-Government, more and more citizens are moving towards using the services provided by E-Government. They are slowly adapting to the use of internet services as they trust and confidence is build on the services of the Government.

References:

• http://www.egov.vic.gov.au/index.php?env=-innews/detail:m568-1-1-8-s-0:n-171-0-0--
• http://www.pmo.gov.my/WebNotesApp/PastKSN.nsf/hv_KSNSamsudin2002/3BF3C54A736585E048256BEC002CA358
• http://www.intanbk.intan.my/psimr/articles/Article1%20-%20Full.pdf
• http://www.mscmalaysia.my/topic/12073023980550

Prepared by: HO PECK KEE