Crowdsourcing is the way forward for today’s corporate and technological world. In a nutshell, crowdsourcing is the process whereby an idea or problem is announced or presented to a certain target group.
The concerned parties and other people with some sort of technical expertise about the matter are then encouraged to contribute their ideas and strategies (either as a donation or with the promise of a reward, usually in monetary form) for a solution.
This creates a pool of knowledge, labor, and resources, but at a fraction of the cost of hiring full-time employees (Haag).
The knowledge of this concept is what has encouraged me to develop my crowd sourcing based website. You see, I have always been fascinated by motor vehicles. Ever since I was little, I wanted to own one so much, and it was for this reason that I saved money religiously.
After years of sacrifice, I finally managed to buy one, but keeping it on the road is a problem. The car constantly breaks down and is always in need of replacement parts, which are neither cheap nor readily accessible to the common consumer.
I have discovered, however, that these parts can be acquired easily and cheaply by simply knowing where to look and the right people to contact. The website, which I have invented, performs exactly this function but without all the hustle.
The idea is to create a database of various car dealers and spare parts distributors for various vehicle manufacturers, the manufacturers’ recommended retail prices of these parts, and the selling prices of these parts as quoted by selected distributors.
The site will also highlight various car problems, their symptoms, and their remedy. It will also be able to rate various service providers such as mechanics and spare-parts distributors based on the level of customer satisfaction and after-sales services.
All the information required to facilitate this will be contributed voluntarily by car owners and service providers (Daren, 2008).
The target audience for this site is mainly individual car owners, especially first-time owners and the inexperienced ones. It is meant to lead them away from common pitfalls in the sector, and also provide them with advice on the best available deals.
In addition to those above, the site will also provide a platform through which various service providers and product manufacturers in this sector can showcase and advertise their wares.
This will create a pool of information sourced from different demographics and geographical locations, hence providing a wider scope of data analysis, i.e., it will enable users to analyze product information from different perspectives.
Although the idea sounds perfect and workable, a myriad of challenges is certain to arise shortly. One such challenge is competition from other well-established sites such as Wikipedia and YouTube.
Whereas I have to start from zero, such sites have been in the market for years and already have millions of followers. The experience they have about the industry and clientele preferences is unmatched.
Also, these sites are well funded and can, therefore, afford to undertake measures such as the hiring of a permanent workforce to facilitate the provision of instant replies to user queries. Such measures are likely to draw in more followers and site users.
There is also going to be competition from the entertainment sector. This will most likely be in the form of television and radio shows, many of which already have millions of faithful viewers and listeners, and followers on social media sites.
A good example is the popular television series called ‘Top Gear’ which is a product of the BBC. The show has nineteen seasons under its belt and millions of followers on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
People are more likely to approach such established corporations than they are to accept information from a new-comer to the industry. This brings me to the third source of competition, which is social media.
There are many forums on social media sites that offer information and services which are similar to those being offered by the site I am developing.
This will be a very difficult hurdle to overcome, because people spend a significant amount of their time on these social media sites daily, due to mobile phones and ‘Tablets.’
Although the main purpose of this site is to offer assistance to motorists, it remains to be a business, and at the core of every business, the establishment is the desire to post profits.
Since the site aims at providing free service/ access to individual users, I have developed an ingenious strategy for realizing profits.
As was mentioned earlier, this site will offer service providers and manufacturers a venue that they can use for advertising their products and services. This platform will, however, come at a fee.
Those companies and individuals wishing to advertise their products will be charged a fixed monthly rate, and a commission based on the traffic rerouted to their websites from my site.
Also, I wish to publish both printed and online motor-vehicle related magazines to diversify the site’s sources of revenue.
This move will also ensure the continuity/ sustainability of the site, and that it remains relevant to its intended purpose of delivering affordable and reliable information to car owners, based on other motorist’s personal experiences (Signer, 2011).
References
Brabham, D. (2013). Crowdsourcing as a Model for Problem Solving.SAGE journals.
Haag, S., & Cummings, M. (2010). Management Information Systems for the Information Age (8 ed.).
Signer, R. (2009). Dowser: Uncovering news and stories about social innovation and social entrepreneurship. Top ten crowdsourced funding platforms | Dowser. Web.