Assessing Online B2B Utilization Among Business Owners in Bayan Lepas Pulau Pinang

This project paper discusses the assessing online B2B utilization among businesses owners in Bayan Lepas, Pulau Pinang. This study involves 103 respondents who were selected via judgement sampling technique. They were asked not only on their assessing towards B2B but also the factors influencing them to use B2B in running their businesses. The analyses show that the samples’ perceptions towards B2B are not nearly positive while the independent variables (confident, experience and knowledge, service and attitude) listed in the model do not significantly correlate with the dependent variable (B2B online usage). Even though there are so many businesses owners know the online transaction and run their business through online but they still could not have a confident and knowledge regarding B2B. In the nutshell, B2B is not really popular among businesses’ owners in Bayan Lepas, Pulau Pinang

Self-Regulation for Online Auctions: An Analysis

The most prevalent form of Internet fraud is auction fraud. As fraud affects both the profits of Internet auction houses as well as honest traders of auction goods, they have a mutual incentive to reduce fraud. However, existing research suggests that little effort has been made by the Internet auction industry to control fraud. As a result, there have been increasing calls for government intervention to regulate the Internet auction marketplace. In this study, we perform a grounded theory analysis of fraud in the Internet auction marketplace. Specifically, this research explores the institutions that experienced traders and auction houses employ to reduce the incidence of fraud. Preliminary evidence suggests that, contrary to common perception, the Internet auction industry has developed many sophisticated institutions for combating fraud. These institutions operate primarily by reducing information asymmetries that con artists exploit. However, due to the ease of entry into Internet auction markets, new entrants become easy prey for con artists

Rationality, Irrationality and Escalating Behavior in Lowest Unique Bid Auctions

Information technology has revolutionized the traditional structure of markets. The removal of geographical and time constraints has fostered the growth of online auction markets, which now include millions of economic agents worldwide and annual transaction volumes in the billions of dollars. Here, we analyze bid histories of a little studied type of online auctions – lowest unique bid auctions. Similarly to what has been reported for foraging animals searching for scarce food, we find that agents adopt Lévy flight search strategies in their exploration of “bid space”. The Lévy regime, which is characterized by a power-law decaying probability distribution of step lengths, holds over nearly three orders of magnitude. We develop a quantitative model for lowest unique bid online auctions that reveals that agents use nearly optimal bidding strategies. However, agents participating in these auctions do not optimize their financial gain. Indeed, as long as there are many auction participants, a rational profit optimizing agent would choose not to participate in these auction markets

Auctioning Bulk Mobile Messages

The search for enablers of continued growth of SMS traffic, as well asthe take-off of the more diversified MMS message contents, open up forenterprises the potential of bulk use of mobile messaging , instead ofessentially one-by-one use. In parallel, such enterprises or valueadded services needing mobile messaging in bulk - for spot use or foruse over a prescribed period of time - want to minimize totalacquisition costs, from a set of technically approved providers ofmessaging capacity.This leads naturally to the evaluation of auctioning for bulk SMS orMMS messaging capacity, with the intrinsic advantages therein such asreduction in acquisition costs, allocation efficiency, and optimality.The paper shows, with extensive results as evidence from simulationscarried out in the Rotterdam School of Management e-Auction room, howmulti-attribute reverse auctions perform for the enterprise-buyer, aswell as for the messaging capacity-sellers. We compare 1- and 5-roundauctions, to show the learning effect and the benefits thereof to thevarious parties. The sensitivity will be reported to changes in theenterprise's and the capacity providers utilities and prioritiesbetween message attributes (such as price, size, security, anddelivery delay). At the organizational level, the paper also considersalternate organizational deployment schemes and properties for anoff-line or spot bulk messaging capacity market, subject to technicaland regulatory constraints.MMS;EMS;Mobile commerce;SMS;multi-attribute auctions

Auctioning Bulk Mobile Messages

The search for enablers of continued growth of SMS traffic, as well as the take-off of the more diversified MMS message contents, open up for enterprises the potential of bulk use of mobile messaging , instead of essentially one-by-one use. In parallel, such enterprises or value added services needing mobile messaging in bulk - for spot use or for use over a prescribed period of time - want to minimize total acquisition costs, from a set of technically approved providers of messaging capacity. This leads naturally to the evaluation of auctioning for bulk SMS or MMS messaging capacity, with the intrinsic advantages therein such as reduction in acquisition costs, allocation efficiency, and optimality. The paper shows, with extensive results as evidence from simulations carried out in the Rotterdam School of Management e-Auction room, how multi-attribute reverse auctions perform for the enterprise-buyer, as well as for the messaging capacity-sellers. We compare 1- and 5-round auctions, to show the learning effect and the benefits thereof to the various parties. The sensitivity will be reported to changes in the enterprise's and the capacity providers utilities and priorities between message attributes (such as price, size, security, and delivery delay). At the organizational level, the paper also considers alternate organizational deployment schemes and properties for an off-line or spot bulk messaging capacity market, subject to technical and regulatory constraints

Cloud based prototype for electronic tea auctioning: case of Momul tea factory

Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Information Technology (MSIT) at Strathmore UniversityKenya is among the global leaders in tea exports. Tea sub-sector is among the largest foreign exchange earners in the county. Processed tea is sold through the Mombasa tea auction; each tea factory is represented by a broker. The method of auction is “open cry “; all buyers and sellers meet and compete for tea sales and purchases publicly; the prices and awards are also public. The auction processes are currently done manually and the auction model is broker centric. There have been serious challenges affecting the Mombasa auction house; inefficiency in the manual processes, lack of transparency to all stakeholders and concerns of unfair auctions practices of collusions and price manipulation. The aim of this research was to remodel tea auction using information technology innovation as an agent of that change. The remodelling involves devolving tea auctions so that the tea processing factories can auction their own tea directly to the buyers. This is achieved through the use of a cloud-based e-auctioning prototype. By enabling factories auction their own processed tea, it resolves the issues of transparently, collusions and price manipulations and it indirectly reduces the cost of production through minimal dependence on brokers for tea auctions thus positive impact on raising the overall income. The research design used is a mixed method research design; qualitative and quantitative, information was collected from written literature; raw data were collected from the population of the case study: Momul tea factory limited by means of interviews and questionnaires and were analysed using SPSS. The analysis results were presented in form graphs of which over 80% of the respondents felt that brokers controlling the auction process were the main challenge ailing tea auction in Kenya. The tools used to develop the prototype are: MySQL, PHP, HTML and JavaScript, these are open source programming tools. Usability tests were carried out among the selected users. The overall reception of the concept was positive with recommendations to include more factories and tea trade regulatory bodies

The role of e-procurement in purchasing management

This exposition summarises research published in several academic articles, in order to meet the requirements of PhD by publication. The focus of the work is on the role of electronic procurement in management of the purchasing function. From the late 1990s a number of independent e-procurement mechanisms were launched which offered potential benefits such as increased order accuracy, transaction efficiency and greater integration between trading partners. At the outset of this programme of research, e-procurement was therefore an emerging phenomenon with little academic research and presented an opportunity to investigate a largely unexplored area. Edmondson and McManus (2007) suggest that for nascent, as opposed to mature areas of research, where few formal constructs or measures exist, an exploratory, qualitative approach is required. This research followed such an approach through the use of case studies, involving observation, participation and interviews with key organisational actors. Each paper makes use of several cases in order to compare and contrast results from different organisations and to draw conclusions from multi-case analysis. The published articles focus on the impact of core applications within e-procurement, including online reverse auctions, electronic marketplaces, online catalogue sites, and buying systems covering the ‘requisition to pay’ cycle. The findings from the papers address a number of core themes in purchasing management. In considering buyer-supplier relationships, it was observed that such dyads are driven by traditional buyer negotiation factors such as segmentation, power and price and that use of eprocurement applications tended to enforce such traditional behaviours. In relation to the potential for integration, the study found that integration between firms was barely affected, as the concept of integration was neither an objective nor a business case driver for e-procurement adoption. This situation reflects the finding that procurement managers pursue functional targets rather than supply chain-level objectives. However, other significant effects from e-procurement adoption were noted such as the tendency by buyers to reduce supplier numbers and a move to re-engineer the procurement function in buying firms, through automating transactional processes. The research finds that e-procurement does not have a deterministic impact on purchasing management, and that it acts as an enabler to more effective management of the function though the way its different mechanisms are deployed. The exposition establishes that e-procurement is used in relation to supply conditions which are characterised by both ‘markets’ and ‘hierarchies’, but that it is the predefined purchasing strategy of the firm, rather than available technology solutions, which determines when markets and hierarchies are used. Additionally, an original model is introduced, focusing on developing an e-procurement policy which can support strategic purchasing goals. This model extrapolates findings from stages in the research, and marries together elements from various papers and frameworks therein, to produce some guidelines for adoption of this technology