Review A Local E-commerce Site

E-commerce site
Public Bank Berhad is one of the most formidable banks in Malaysia. It is the fifth largest company in Malaysia by billions of market capitalization. The Founder and Chairman of Public Bank is Tan Sri Dato’ Sri Dr. Teh Hong Piow. It has strong corporate governance and a corporate culture which are committed to excellence. Under the corporate banking services, Public Bank is a market leader in consumer banking and retail commercial lending to SMEs in Malaysia.

Establishment of Public Bank’s website has given more convenience to internet users. Public bank’s website at http://www.phebank.com.my/ provides a wide range of information about the company such as corporate information, Board of Directors, senior management, corporate mission, corporate structure and product and services. The provision is actually assisting the users such as potential investors to have a better understanding of the company.

In addition, the provision of the website of Public Bank has rendered significant impacts on customers. Customers can actually get updated by surfing the website. Customers can also search the information such as financing loan, interest charges and the current promotions.

Other than that, customers can utilize their e-banking services. Customers are given opportunity to check their saving balances and credit card debts through the website. Furthermore, customers are allowed to settle their debts or make payments through the website by just using the password.

http://www.publicbank.com.my/

Prevention of E-Auction Fraud

E-Auction is defined as a bidding market mechanism where buyers compete to grad the desired products at low price.Ebay.com is one of the popular auction websites where users can get the products for low price. However, fraud aspect should be taken into consideration before bidding the products.

One of the examples of e-auction fraud is bid shielding. Bid shielding is one of the ways to mislead the real bidders. Fake participant starts bidding with very high price and they quit the bidding at last minute. The real bidder who bid for low price will eventually pay for it. The purpose is to mislead the real buyer’s concentration to their products.

There are a few ways of preventing e-auction fraud. First of all, users are highly encouraged to get a better understanding on the running of e-auction such as knowing the obligations of buyer and seller. In addition, Users are advised to utilize identification verification for safety purposes. In other words, disclosure of personal data to outsiders is totally discouraged.

Users can ask for warranty or insurance policy for assurance if there is any problem on item purchases. Moreover, users can review the feedback rating of the seller. Logically thinking; buyers will not bid on the items if the particular sellers have notorious feedback. In order to avoid any redundant cost, users are advised to read the information about the shipping and handling fees carefully. Clarification must be made before bidding is started.

Related Articles: How to prevent e-auction fraud and how to avoid online auction fraud

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

The Electronic Government initiative in Malaysia was launched to lead the country
into the Information Age. It has improved both how the government operates internally
as well as how it delivers services to the people of Malaysia. It seeks to improve the
convenience, accessibility and quality of interactions with citizens and businesses;

The 7 pilot projects of the Electronic Government Flagship Application are as
follows:

1. Project Monitoring System (SPP II)
- Online system that monitors the entire lifecycle of national programs, i.e. from project application to approval to implementation, mid-term review and completion.

2. Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)
- HRMIS is an integrated, technology enabled Human Resource Management Information System for the Malaysian Public Service, incorporating Global Best Practices in HR that would enable the Public Service to successfully deal with the Challenges of the K-Economy.

3. Generic Office Environment (GOE)
- Powerful document and office management solution that enables users to effectively and efficiently manage their office environment. It is fully web-based and has been customized based on local developed package, DRDok.

4. Electronic Procurement (EP)
- An electronic procurement system, which enables suppliers to sell goods and services to the Government through the Internet. Suppliers “open shop” on the World Wide Web, advertise their goods, present their pricing, process orders and deliveries.

5. Electronic Services (E-Services)
- E-Services is one of the pilot projects under the Electronic Government Flagship within the
Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) initiative. With E-Services, one can now conduct transactions with Government agencies, such as the Road Transport Department (RTD) and private utility companies such as Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) and Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) through various convenient channels.

6. Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX)
-ELX is one stop-centre for labor market information, as supervised by the Ministry of Human Resource (MOHR), to enable employers and job seekers to communicate on the same platform.

7. E-Syariah
- e-Syariah is the seventh project under the Electronic Government flagship application of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC). A case management system that integrates the processes related to management of cases for the Syariah Courts.

In order for citizens to adopt e-government services, there are several criteria that must be meet. First of all, citizens must be educated on how to use the services available in e-government website. Secondly, government must make sure that the web design must be clear and not only to build relationship with the visitors, but also to enhance their experience. These features give visitors a sense of control and participation and could potentially enhance their adoption. And lastly, the service quality of e-government must be good to build confidences among the users. Some measurements that can be used is the speed of the response to the citizens concerns with problem solving approach, and the availability of names.

references link(s):
http://www.gov.my/

www.american.edu/initeb/ym6974a/egovernment.htm

Corporate blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

A corporate weblog is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. Corporate blogging is being used as a new marketing communication tool for companies. Corporate blogging can provide clear guidelines of overall marketing or communication strategy to its employees and third parties. In other ways, blogs are fast way to join the customers' discussions, provide tips and insights or receive feedback, thus they improve the customer relationship.


Advantages of corporate blog:
Corporate blogging give the writer an opportunity to answer critics in a controlled forum. Good blogs may even effectively use moderated comments to allow users of the product to post feedback and effectively use links to take visitors to other sites that they would find helpful. Beside that, posts and comments are easy to reach and follow due to centralized hosting and generally structured conversation threads.

Disadvantages of corporate blog:
However, corporate blogging might make it easy for defamation and invasion of privacy or to breach information security and loss of company confidentiality. In addition, the corporate blog can be tricky to drag public comment out of a company without first routing through the sanitizing filter of a press office and there is a risk that an ill-judged comment could be seized upon by the media or disgruntled investors.

Examples of corporate blog include:
Company Blog (eg.Google, Adobe, Flickr, Facebook, and Yahoo! Search), CEO Blog (eg.Sun CEO), Industry Blog and Department or Product Blog (eg.Microsoft Community Blogs). Although there are many different types of corporate blogs, most can be categorized as either external or internal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog
http://www.enterpriseblogs.info/corporate-blogging/disadvantages
http://www.enterpriseblogs.info/corporate-blogging/advantages