Introduction
Crowdsourcing was first used to determine the degree of influence of the collective mind on a single business. It is believed that crowdsourcing is the process of doing work by a variety of contractors without any contracts, in most cases, online. Unlike freelance, the use of human resources is suitable for solving more labor-intensive tasks that require a considerable number of performers and time. Thus, the most precise definition of crowdsourcing is information technology, which combines interested people and makes it possible to propose ideas on a given topic, comment and discuss, refine and choose the best.
Definition of crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing is a unique tool for both business and government. For example, the owner of a company that produces consumer goods is about to release a new product. How do business people know if it will be in demand? It is essential to understand that the standard way of marketing research is time-consuming, expensive, and is not always effective (Brabham, 2017). An alternative is crowdsourcing, because within a couple of days, the consumer demand for the product will be known, and the report will be received from the target consumer. It should be mentioned that the Starbucks coffee shop company created the My Starbucks Idea website (My Starbucks Idea, 2016). The team collected the plans for improving coffee houses from visitors, and also tested new products.
In business, crowdsourcing can be used to achieve a wide variety of goals from solving a specific problem, creating content, generating new ideas to conducting an expert assessment. At the same time, the competence of the people participating in the project does not matter much. For example, directors can invite users of the site to participate in the best idea competition with a guarantee of an excellent reward to the winner. Another example involves questioning on improving the service in return for a small discount or free expert content.
Advantages of crowdsourcing
The advantage of crowdsourcing is in reducing the cost of the company to perform many tasks (Cappa et al., 2019, p. 103825). For instance, it is more profitable for a company to attract various specialists to solve a non-core task once than to hire a separate employee for this assignment. Implementation of projects does not require a lot of money, because often the website or social network is enough. Besides, in many cases, participants do not need a monetary reward because the best incentive is to participate in the work of a well-known company or to see their idea embodied.
Disadvantages of crowdsourcing
It is important to note that the disadvantages of crowdsourcing include the difficulty in predicting the quality of project participants’ work (Allon and Babich, 2020, p. 104). The business can get thousands of brilliant ideas, but there is a risk of not getting a single sensible thought. Crowdsourcing has excellent potential for use in business, which is increasingly aware of the effectiveness of attracting outside forces to solve specific problems (Kohler and Chesbrough, 2019, p. 359). The capabilities and applications of crowdsourcing will expand significantly with the advent of technologies to achieve synergies, combining the intellectual efforts of participants.
Conclusion
In conclusion, crowdsourcing provides access to talents around the world, as it ensures an opportunity to attract a vast number of people to the project and choose the best among them. The crowd method is indispensable for working with the audience and society as a whole. It allows business people to engage volunteers in activities and educate loyal customers, as well as study their needs in detail and receive advice on improving products and services. Crowdsourcing provides high-speed tasks, as hundreds of people work simultaneously to solve them.
References
Allon, G. and Babich, V. (2020) ‘Crowdsourcing and crowdfunding in the manufacturing and services sectors’, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 22(1), pp. 102-112.
Brabham, D. C. (2017) ‘Crowdsourcing’, The International Encyclopedia of Organizational Communication, 8(1), pp. 1-6.
Cappa, F., Oriani, R., Pinelli, M., and De Massis, A. (2019), ‘When does crowdsourcing benefit firm stock market performance’? Research Policy, 48(9), p. 103825.
Kohler, T. and Chesbrough, H. (2019), ‘From collaborative community to competitive market: the quest to build a crowdsourcing platform for social innovation’, R&D Management, 49(3), pp. 356-368.
My Starbucks Idea: the Starbucks crowdsourcing success story (2016) Web.