Sunday, July 12, 2009

E-Government in Malaysia: its implementation so far and consumers' adoption strategies

Malaysia's electronic government (e-government) initiative began in 1997 with the launch of the Multimedia Super Corridor's (MSC) E-Government Flagship Application. In fact , the Malaysia e-government is one of the 2020 visions. The purpose of launching MSC is to lead Malaysia into an information and communication technology (ICT) country. The initiate of e-government enable Malaysia to become a more advance country by using e-government effectively in operating internally and externally in term of businesses, interaction with citizens, government services or other transactions inside or outside Malaysia. Basically, the E-government has divided into 7 pilot of Flagship Application which include:

Project Monitoring System (SPP II)
An online system which government used to monitor and supervise the existing development programs as well as future development plans.

Human Resources Management Information System (HRMIS)
An integration of Human Resources Management Information System for the Malaysian's public services.

Generic Office Environment (GEO)
A powerful document and office management solution that enable users to effectively and efficiently manage their office environment.

Electronic Procurement (EP)
A system enables suppliers to supply goods and services to government efficiency through ICT system including goods advertising and deliveries.

Electronic Services (E-Services)
A system facilitating in conduction of transactions with Private Government Agencies, such as Road Transport Department (RTD), Tenaga National Berhad (TNB) and Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM).

Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX)
An one stop center for labor market information which is supervised by Ministry of Human Resources (MOHR), enables employers and job seekers to communicate with each other.

E-Syariah
A management system that intergrates the processes related to management of cases for the Syariah Courts.

Currently Malaysian e-government has success in several applications like:

• Government's drive for e-government services
• Electronic Labor Exchange which has match more than 75000 potential employees with employers since 2005
• SMS alert on e-government services
• Online renewal of driving licenses
• Electronic filling of income tax forms
• Voter information
• Details for government tenders
• Employment opportunities


However the e-government in Malaysia is improving there are still some problems where Malaysia government requires putting more effort to tackle it. Such as lack of public awareness to the particular e-government services, ease of use, language barriers, and trustworthy of the online transaction via e-government by users.

Especially the senior citizens (baby boomer), they refuse to adopt e-government instead of spending plenty of time on traveling for paying utilities bills. The factors behind are the doubtful of the system as well as language problems.

In another dimension, generation X and Y are continuing accept the e-government services. The introduction of computer education in the primary school since earlier represents a mainstream to the contribution. The major problem is availability of the sources like PC and internet connection by the user. In order to improve the e-government services in Malaysia, the faith as well as trust between citizens and government must be built.

Sources from :
Posted by Weijian Lee at 5:07 AM 4 comments

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Review on a post on e-retailing from My E-commerce blog


Electronic Retailing (E-Tailing) is a process of selling retailing products or services online via a world wide web. E-tailing was used in internet since early 1995. Basically, E-tailing is synonymous with business-to-consumer(B2C) transaction. There are top 10 e-retailer was rank recently in UK which include:

  1. Amazon UK
  2. Argos
  3. Play.com
  4. Amazon.com
  5. Tesco.com
  6. Marks & Spencer
  7. Epson UK
  8. Expedia.co.uk
  9. Next
  10. ASOS

The success of electronic retailing has resulted in the development of e-tailware. Which is a software tools for designing online catalogs and managing the business connected with doing e-tailing. Besides, there is a new trend where the price comparison sites enable e-retailers to compare prices from a number of different e-retailers from there to gain competitive advantages.

One of the e-retailing examples is sales of digital music online. This online business is growing dramatically in a 10 years time. Particularly in year 2004 the downloaded as well as sales of digital music was increased by 900% compared to 2003 said International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFBI). And an estimation was made in UK on December 2008 where the sales of digital music will increase heavily by year 2013, mainly in UK. How about world wide estimation? There will be a critical mass.


Besides, a lot of music devices such as Ipod is encouraging consumer to buy digital music to facilitate them in transferring digital music in the Ipod player instead of buying CD which cause inconvenience. Amazon.com is one of the e-retailers who provides online music sales to consumer.

Advantages of buying digital music :
  1. Much wider choice at fingertips
  2. Price discrimination as well as comparison
  3. Customized product placement

Disadvantages of buying digital music :

  1. Limited only to on line users
  2. Ease of use problems
  3. Trust, security and privacy problems
Posted by Weijian Lee at 7:26 PM 1 comments

Monday, July 6, 2009

A review on a post on Legal from my E-commerce blog





While the internet was booming, many people tends to purchase online due to conveniency. On the contrary, online purchasing is no longer secure. One might be cheated just because of the cheaper prices.

The post is about the fraud in an online website named Big Pussycat which sell skincare products such as facial and eye masks. The company has cheated at least 66 of them after making online payment amounting to RM73,445.10. This is because it offer the customers chepaer price than off the self.

In order to prevent from online purchases fraud, one needs to buy only from secure websites and ensures that the websites is secured with encryption. The examples of safe website are Amazon.com and also Microsoft website. In order to check the security of the website, one can take note of the address bar. It will be more secure if the address bar is https.

Besides that, one should also check the validity of the company before enter into online purchases. He or she sshould check with the company's registry to make sure that the company is legitimate. However, there are few resources that can verify the legitimacy of newly established companies. Therefore, one should be pay extra attention when dealing with new comapnies.





Sources from:
Posted by xuehwa at 11:04 PM 5 comments

Corporate blogging:A new marketing communication tool for companies


In this Internet age, corporate blogging has becoming an authentic marketing for a company. Do you know what is a corporate blog? Corporate blog is basically refer to a company that create a blog in order to accomplish with the business goals. It has becoming the hottest communication tools on the web. Nowadays, corporate is not only develop into private sectors but also government sectors as well.

There are two type of corporate blog which are internal and external blog. Internal blog is generally being accessed through the corporation's Internet where the employees can view it while an external blog is available to public to share their view.There are few companies that are so successful with their corporate blogging that provide the people information. Among them are Dell, Lenovo, Sun Microsystems as well as Southwest Airlines.

Corporate blogging is an easy and inexpensive weblog unlikes other websites that require design and HTML skills. Corporate blog can be easily being established and promoted. Besides that, corporate blogging also helps to extend corporate communications. It enable the company to communicate directly with the customers and prospects. This type of communication can enhance trust between the customer and the company.

Furthermore, a corporate blog also enables the customers to get the latest and accurate information about the company new products and services. It helps the customer to be more familiar with the products and services too. A company can closely detect where and what condition its products and services being categorised through corporate blogging.

Corporate blogs can be very effective communication tools within a corporate community. The company will pay attention to their feedback because a negative view will damage the company's reputation.



Sources from:
Posted by xuehwa at 10:55 PM 5 comments

Example and prevention methods of phishing

Phishing is a process in which criminal sending a fake email to user and acting as if a legitimate body to request for personal confidential information such as credit card password, bank account number and user name. basically, the bogus email will direct user to a website and request for personal information update in fact it is a trap.

One of the real cases was reported on 31 March 2009 where a lot of Maybank customer including non-customer were received a phishing scam as follow:



As we can see the phishing email is trying to grab the recipient's confidence by adding the logo as well as image copied from the legitimate website as convince recipient to observe the steps given by the scam artists. The trap under step 4, most of the recipients may click in the link and being
directed to a new website to update their personal information with procedures provided.

Besides, a similar case in Malaysia (Malacca) was reported in thestar news on 23 of June 2009. A man loses RM 5000 to online phishing scam in a local bank.

In order to prevent phishing scams effectively we need to be acknowledged on some prevention
method:

  1. Install an anti-phishing software such as GFI MailEssentials which is an anti-spam and anti-phishing solution for Exchange Server and other email servers.
  2. Don't trust and be suspicious toward e-mail headers, which can be forged easily.
  3. Never ever click the link within the text of the email.
  4. Avoid filling out forms in e-mail messages where requesting your confidential information.
  5. Verify the legitimacy of a web address with the legitimate company directly before submitting your personal information.
  6. If u had clicked the link provided by an unsolicited email you should check whether there is an 's' after the http in the address and a lock at the bottom of the screen that indicates the link is secure and encrypts data. Because in an an online form of asking consumer to submit sensitive personal information should always be encrypted.
  7. Contact the legitimate company named in the email to double confirm whether the email is sent them for information request. In fact, most of the companies do not ask customers to confirm personal information by sending an email.
  8. If you have accidentally provide the sensitive personal information to cyber-thief you should contact the legitimate company to suspend your account, change password as well as change your user name.
  9. lodge a report about the suspicious email to the Federal Trade Commission's address for unsolicited commercial email.
  10. Notify the Internet Fraud Complaint Center of the FBI by filing a complaint on their website: www.ic3.gov
Year-in-year-out the case of phishing is tremendously increase. As we can see in 2007, There were 147 phishing cases while there were 1,057 in 2008, an increase of 619% . Apparently, the case of phishing is tremendously increase. As a naive user, we need to strengthen our awareness toward every phishing email.



Sources from:
Posted by Weijian Lee at 8:46 PM 3 comments

Friday, July 3, 2009

The application of third party certification in Malaysia

In fact, third party certification has exist over the years through the internet.

Just see it from Internet explorer. Click the tool button on the top, then click the internet option, and you will see something like this:


Click the "content" as has circled in red on above.


And click the "certificates".


All the above are the certificates for different software we used normally.

In fact, this application has existed in Malaysia too. For example, MSC Trustgate.com Sdn. Bhd.



It was established in 1999 as a licensed Certification Authority (CA) in Malaysia under the Digital Signature Act 1997. [1] Trustgate provides complete security solution and trusted service to secure the open network communications and network electronic transaction. The projects that have been implemented by trustgate such as:
  • E-banking security deployment
  • E-procurement integration
  • User authentication and customer clearance approval system

According to Wikipedia, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a protocol which provide security and data integrity for communication over the network.

It enables applications to transmit information securely. The applications that use SSL protocol will know how to give and receive encryption keys with other application. Besides, it knows how to encrypt and decrypt data too. There are over millions of e-Business providers are using SSL protocol. The reason is that it can ensure customers' online transactions are secured and remain confidential. Sites that will use SSL are those contained login boxes, credit card payments or any personal information. Thus, to use the SSL protocol, a web server need to get an SSL certificate. One of the example will be XRamp Premium Wildcard Certificate.



Besides that, Malaysia government has started to use MyKey which utilize MyKad (Malaysian identity card). It is a digital software governed by Malaysia's Digital Signature Act 1997. [2] MyKey enables the citizen to authenticate themselves online, digitally sign documents, or make transactions with government agencies or private sectors.



Sources from:

Posted by Emay Tai at 5:26 AM 3 comments
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