Crowdsourcing Assignment: Impact Of Outsourcing In Business (Term Paper Sample)

CROWDSOURCING
Contents
TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u 1. Introduction PAGEREF _Toc468373939 \h 3
2.Impact of outsourcing in business PAGEREF _Toc468373940 \h 4
2.1 Private sector PAGEREF _Toc468373941 \h 5
2.2 Public sector PAGEREF _Toc468373942 \h 6
3. Critical analysis of crowdsourcing PAGEREF _Toc468373943 \h 7
4.Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc468373944 \h 8
5.Reference PAGEREF _Toc468373945 \h 9
1. Introduction
Crowdsourcing is a term that is a combination of two terms i.e. crowd and outsourcing. This definition was given by Jeff Howe by getting an article published in a magazine in June 2006 with the title “The rise of crowdoutsourcing” (Sherman, 2011). Howe explains due to technical advancements there are very cheap electronics available in the market. So the professional and unprofessional have no gap in between. So to make a single product there are several minds working and the companies are taking full advantage of this talent (Brabham, n.d.). As per Howe’s words this is not exactly the outsourcing but the correct term is crowdsourcing. Some persons say that it is called as open sourcing whereas this term is used in the context of software that allows easy accessibility to the products for the complete improvement and innovation in the existing products. Henk van Ess gave a new concept in this regard in September 2010 that states crowdsourcing evokes inquisitiveness to sort out any problem and sharing the solution with all. This term is typically used as the technique of broadcasting the problem to unknown masses for the solution. Users of this solution are termed as crowd, mainly the online communities (Garrigos-Simon, Gil-Pechuán and Estelles-Miguel, n.d.).
2.Impact of outsourcing in business
Although there are various solutions offered by the strategy of crowdsourcing and all of these are expected to be distinct in nature yet there are a lot many instances when the organizations have attained very numerous benefits while following this technique. It is always advised that an organization must focus on single benefit to achieve the maximum return on their investment instead of targeting multiple benefits and splitting the focus to achieve the same. The decision makers in the organizations especially in the public sector need to understand how the crowd can give the better outcome and how their strength can associate with the needs of the organization. This way, the organization finds the crowd acting as the talent enhancer for the organization (Libert et al., 2010). Also, it lets the organization to get the ideas from a variety of sources and the organization can achieve the best in terms of maximized return than it get it through following the traditional means.
All these are known as the external problem solvers and they are least affected by the organizational bias as compared to the employees working in the organization on the same problem. According to the recent survey, more than half of the full time workers just act as the baby boomers and less than 10 percent out of them are youngsters. Crowd lets to get the maximum resources on outsourcing basis and also lets them to give the best outcome.
2.1 Private sector
In private sector it goes well as compared to the public sectors as in the public sectors there are fixed budgets and limited number of employees. All these factors hamper the talent which is the need of the hour to sort out the critical issues. The crowd is here to produce the step forward for getting the solution of several types of problems whether they are pending since long or newly entered into the market. This strategy brings the best result by
* Creating different solutions to the same problem
* Resources are attained at the most
Amaozon.com is also cited here as an example of adopting the concept of crowdsourcing (Libert et al., 2010). But as Mechanical Turk was facing lots of issues in it, it made multiple considerable advancements to get rid of all these issues. Turk wishes to make the firms and developers so powerful to remove all of the issues by maintaining a good kinship among crowds and the organization (Grier, 2013). For obtaining the best outcome, such a platform is created where the crowds and the employers can communicate safely and efficiently. Also, any of the transactions can be made on this platform very easily. Wikipedia is the recent and the best example of using crowdsourcing strategy. There are innumerable people who are raising many issues regarding crowdsourcing and also they themselves are creating very significant database addressing all the issues and their solutions (Ranjbar and Maheswaran, n.d.). Sony and Chrysler are few of the instances that use the technique to promote their product through sharing the marketing messages to the public at large to let it go viral. Doritos had started a contest in 2007 to advertise the products and Goldcorp mining did the same in Canada in 2000 for the business dealing in gold deposits. Starbucks also took the initiative to get good ideas about their products and services.
2.2 Public sector
Mainly in the public sectors there is shortage of time and lack of good talent makes the organization to take several important decisions like tradeoffs (Brabham, n.d.). Consequently, the tasks which are very much critical but are of the low priority than others, get neglected. But crowdsourcing ends up this problem by involving the external talent on outsourcing basis. And these people are very much dedicated to serve the organization by dedicatedly giving the best of their time and energy both. The most importantly, they are not the workers who work on incentive based projects.
Government is mainly meant for and by the people that can make the best utilization of crowdsourcing. These are some of the approaches that make the organization to reach the individuals and motivating them to actively participate in the sorting out the problems faced by Govt. Organizations (Brabham, n.d.). Resulting, there would be a broad network involving the good public engagement. Along with finding the best resources for the organization crowdsourcing also creates much more excitement amongst the individuals reading their work on public policy issues. As per a survey, a total of approximately 100 best brands are dealing in this approach since a decade. All of these organizations push the crowd to add on their inputs in the flexible approach to get the solution on the problems.
3. Critical analysis of crowdsourcing
Complex problem can be solved out at very low cost and in a very small time frame. Apart from this, if the solution is apt then the cost has to be paid. However, it is not the case in crowdsourcing. It is not money oriented rather it is result oriented (Rosen, 2011). This is very good strategy to get the supreme talent which may or may not be available in the organization itself. This is the best way to have good relation with the crowdsourcing organization, which is beneficial to raise funds. In the words of Matt H. Evans In his article, Crowdsourcing lets an individual to enter into the world of suggestions and ideas. It involves very negligible or almost no cost because most of the people wish to share their ideas so that they get implemented at the Global level. However, there are several reasons associated with crowdsourcing which make it a point of criticism.
It is never assured that Crowdsourcing will produce quality oriented results, as this is the solution for getting the results in very low costs (Rosen, 2011). Facebook has one such instance when it commenced the localization program; several criticisms were imposed on it. This is the only reason ...