1.0 Introduction
Global crowdsourcing has become an increasingly popular choice for individuals as well as businesses for its efficiency and effectiveness in fulfilling specified requests. It is often employed to gain a competitive edge in the evermore fierce business environment.
1.1 Target Market
Crowdsourcing has no particular target market as the concept itself builds upon accreted public input from all relevant sources (Enrique E.A. 2012). The websites designed utilising this concept aims to captivate a large pool of personnel with differing skills sets, commonly referred to as solvers, to provide solutions to those who desire particular skills for their problem, called the seekers.
Common value propositions: For seekers:
• Efficient and effective completion of specified tasks.
• Employment on a ‘need’ basis for cost savings.
• Vast skills pool to find the most suitable candidates for the job.
• ‘Open Innovation’ (Chesbrough, H. 2003).
For solvers:
• Vast job opportunities.
• Specified workload and financial reward.
• Flexibility of working hours and location.
• Gain experience in various fields of work according to own preference.

1.2 Crowdsourcing Platforms Analysis
Platform Website Specific Value Propositions
Mechanical Turk Seekers – Individuals and companies seeking extensive labour. • Opportunities open to the general public as jobs focus on the division of labour for simple tasks requiring minimal innovation or technicality.
• Fixed payment, easy to calculate based on ‘HITS’ (Amazon Mechanical Turk Inc. 2015). Solvers – any individual with free time.
Freelancer Seekers – Individuals and businesses seeking innovative fashion design. • Requests of design announced gaining response from various designers to choose from (Freelancer Technology Pty Ltd, 2015).
• High degree of communication between seeker and solver for idea transfer and enhanced results. Solvers – fashion designers.
ODesk (ODesk Corp. 2015) Seekers – Mainly businesses requiring assistance in specialised areas. • Job opportunities and requirements are posted to attract potential solvers.
• Pay rates differ and negotiable depending on nature of project.
• oDesk’s credibility rating system reduces the time to find suitable candidates for the job and ensures work quality to a degree. Solvers – individuals or groups possessing certain skills.
Would You Rock This (WYRT) Seekers – individuals with design ideas. • Sketches of design are uploaded onto the site for public voting, gaining publicity and response (Would You Rock This, 2014).
• Interested buyers could purchase the uploaded sketch for own use.
• Offers aid in market research for businesses in the form of statistical analysis of trending designs. Solvers – individuals and companies looking for good designs or talented persons.
Spoonflower Seekers – Individuals looking to purchase fabric, wallpaper or gift-wrap. • Providing a display and purchase platform for designers.
• It allows the seekers to use available material and web tools to design their own product for purchase (Spoonflower Inc, 2014).
• Fixed commission is paid when an uploaded design is purchased by another party. Solvers - Designers looking to gain a profit or publicity from their design.

2.1 oDesk Business Model Canvas (information sourced from ODesk Corp. 2015)
Partner Network

Elance oDesk has established partnerships with many companies including:
• Microsoft
• Magneto
• Bluehost
• ORACLE
• X.commerce
• Yahoo Small Business
• Zend
• Zencart
• Appcelerator
Etc. Key Activities
• Providing an intermediary platform for seekers and solvers to exchange jobs.
• Reviewing and rating seekers and solvers based on past performance. (credibility measure)
• Providing general user support. Offer

• Providing a channel of communication between seekers and solvers.
• Track work progress of solvers especially for jobs paid on a time basis.
• A skills pool provided by 9.7 million solvers globally.
• Over 2 million seekers for open job opportunities.
• Ensuring prompt work completion and payment. Customer Relationships
• Education workshops for seekers.
• oDesk support team managing any online enquiries and solving operational problems efficiently and effectively.
• ‘Top rated freelancer program’ to distinguish the most well performed solvers.
• Affiliate Program Key Resources
• Vast user database.
• Website designed for efficient and simple navigation.
• Well established reputation to attract new users. Distribution Channels
• Website (via registering an account)
• Email
• Social media sites including twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+ circle.
• Youtube videos.
• oDesk Blog
• Various news and reviews website including Yahoo, Times etc.
Customer Segments
• Covers a diverse range of business areas, with seekers and solvers from over 180 countries across the world. Cost Structure
• Costs of site design and maintenance.
• Wages to oDesk employees.
• R&D costs of management tools and complementary services.
• Payment to affiliate marketing. Revenue Streams
• A 10% charge on all job payments.
• A 20% charge on the oDesk payroll service.
• Advertising on oDesk website.

2.2 oDesk Business Canvas Evaluation
Whilst all crowdsourcing websites pride in their ability to provide a reliable exchange platform for jobs with the freedom and flexibility to accommodate for the needs of its users, oDesk is especially advanced in their approach to crowdsourcing.
2.2.1 Value Proposition
Having a large pool of seekers and solvers is advantageous in that seekers have the freedom of choice for the most appropriate candidates for the job, and solvers could find the jobs that would suit their skills set (Enrique E.A. 2012). Conversely, some users may find the numbers overwhelming and time-consuming to search through the site.
There is also a barrier of entry for new solvers as the rating system employed by oDesk would limit job opportunities given the seekers are naturally inclined to employ those with a good credibility rating and relevant experience. New solvers would be ‘buried’ in the vast number and find it difficult to be hired initially. Solvers with a well built-up credibility rating are prioritized in job search lists and tech support from oDesk (ODesk Corp, 2015).
2.2.2 Infrastructure
The website is designed for simple navigation, and it stores data from previous searches and job records to provide future suggestions. This reduces the time and effort required in the future for similar jobs.
2.2.3 Customer
ODesk has designed various educational workshops and posts in social media to inform new users on how to navigate and use the website for job exchange. It also partakes in social media sites including Facebook, twitter etc. for news publication as well as user support and feedback. These ensure the website’s ease of use and effectiveness.
2.2.4 Finance
ODesk’s revenue is dependent on the amount of transaction it processes as its main source of revenue is a 10% fee. This means that the website would emphasize on their service quality to ensure consistent growth of users. ODesk also introduced an affiliate program as part of marketing such that a $50 payment is made when an affiliate introduces a new seeker to the website (ODesk Corp. 2015).

3.1 Role of technology in Value Creation
ODesk generates value through acting as the intermediary between seekers and solvers. It heavily leverages on technology to cater for the constantly evolving needs of its users.
3.1.1 Management Software
ODesk has developed a software called ‘work diary’ to ensure real-time value creation by the solvers in exchange for payments through monitoring the progress of solvers by taking screenshots at regular intervals for the seekers (ODesk Corp, 2015); Thereby ensuring responsible work and fair value exchange. ODesk also takes responsibility in ensuring prompt payment or refund where necessary; this creates assurance for the users.
3.1.2 Virtual Support Team
ODesk employs personnel around the world as its support customer service agents that are available for any queries regarding website operations using synchronous virtual chat (Charles M. 2012). It is one of oDesk’s competitive advantage given these agents are flexible in working hours to ensure their availability and responsiveness to resolving issues. This helps to maintain the vitality of the website by constructing a long-term relationship between oDesk and the seekers and solvers.
3.1.3 API Centre
Users have the option to integrate oDesk’s services into their own management systems and customise the functions according to need. For example, the OAuth 1.0 authentication is able to grant clients access to private resources via API without revealing owner credentials. ODesk also provides the basic codings required for additional customisation including how to search for detailed user profiles as well as jobs, tracking payments, generate reports on user teams, companies etc (ODesk Corp 2015).
3.1.4 Collaboration tool - Mobile App
ODesk has developed an application called ‘ODesk Messenger’ available for download in the Apple iOS store that allows instant alerts for updating status, job invitations and reply, as well as a chat function between ODesk teams (ODesk Corp, 2015). This improves user intimacy and efficiency as it reduces delays in communication between seekers and solvers. It is a competitive advantage over other crowdsourcing platforms that are limited to asynchronous communication.

4.1 Evaluation of Forever 21 and its need for crowdsourcing
Forever 21 is a well-established company with a strong customer base within the younger generations from teens up to the 30s, it tailors its designs to appeal to this age group (Forever21 Inc. 2015). Crowdsourcing platforms Freelancer, WYRT and Spoonflower are not suitable for Forever 21 as they have a niche focus on innovative design. As design is a core capability of the company, it should be developed as a competitive advantage and never to be outsourced (Hirai A, 2012). WYRT also provides the service of market research through analysing trending statistics; However, given the goals and objectives of the company (refer to Appendix A), it should again work to enhance its designs, creating the trend instead of simply following. Hence these platforms would not provide much benefit to the company. Although it would be advantageous to form partnerships or sponsorships with these crowdsourcing platforms as they can be a channel to finding new talented recruits to join the company.
In context of Forever 21’s operations and future projections (refer to Appendix A), I believe the crowdsourcing website oDesk would add the most value to the business in terms of cost minimization, innovation, as well as operational efficiency and effectiveness. As pointed out previously, oDesk encompasses a global network of users and skills pool (ODesk Corp. 2015), which could complement Forever 21’s business functions to enhance performance.
The company could utilise oDesk to aid in its planned global expansion by hiring market researchers from geographical regions where new stores are to be located, thereby gaining an in depth understanding of the business environment, demographics, consumer needs and expectations from a local perspective (Bratvold D, 2015). The company would then be able to formulate strategies specifically targeting the local consumers, thus increasing the effectiveness of the expansion and business growth.
The company could also hire specialists to assist in marketing on social media sites (Fraser J, 2014), as well as event managers to plan and monitor promotional campaigns across different countries. They can also seek out technological and design specialists to generate innovative ideas to improve their web and mobile interface, one example would be the virtual fitting room where customers can upload their photos to try on clothing. The company could also cost save by hiring independent auditors from ODesk to review individual vendor’s working conditions that has caused past scandal (Forever21 Inc. 2015) for the company.
4.2 Risks
By adopting ODesk crowdsourcing, the company is exposed to confidentiality risk as the company has little control over the operation of the contracted solvers and there is a risk of them exposing information to a third party (Stevens D, 2015). There will also be a problem of non-uniform reporting and feedback from different solvers, increasing difficulty of comparing responses. It is difficult to track the progress of the solvers as Forever 21 will be dependent on prompt contact from the solvers. Crowdsourcing can cause internal tension as employees may feel that their job security is threatened. These risks would reduce business value and needs to be carefully accessed.

4.3 Recommendations
• Focus on producing consistent product design to strengthen the company’s reputation alongside the proposed expansion.
• Access and strategize on crowdsourcing risk controls.
• Use ODesk crowdsourcing to conduct foreign market research, marketing, event planning and auditing.
• Seek out ODesk professionals to innovate and improve the web and mobile interface design.