Business Information Systems

Introduction
With the advent of modern technology, the Internet has replaced most ways of obtaining information. One such method of obtaining information is crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing has revolutionized the way services are rendered, with an online community taking up the tradtional role of suppliers. Forever 21, the popular American fashion retail chain has hired a leading international consulting firm to advice on global crowd sourcing. As a junior consultant, specializing in Information Systems at the firm, I have been tasked with recommending crowdsourcing strategies for Forever 21. In doing so, I shall investigate the crowdsourcing phenomenon and aim to identify the best crowd sourcing strategy for Forever 21. The client has identified platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), Freelancer, oDesk, Would You Rock This (WYRT), and Spoonflower to be off particular interest. As a junior consultant, I have thus evaluated these platforms and then put forward my recommendation on the best crowdsourcing platform. One that I believe is capable of posing radical challenges or opportunities in line with Forever 21’s objectives and operations (Allen, 2011).
In-Depth Analysis of the Various Types of Crowd Sourcing Platforms
In this section, I shall conduct an in-depth analysis of the aforementioned crowd sourcing platforms on the basis of their target markets (Barnes, Hinton, & Mieczkowska. 2003).
Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk): The Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is a swarm sourcing Internet commercial center that empowers people and organizations (known as Requesters) to organize the utilization of human insight to perform undertakings that PCs are at present not able to do. It is one of the destinations of Amazon Web Services. The Requesters have the capacity to post errands known as HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks), for example, picking the best among a few photos of a storefront, composition item portrayals, or distinguishing entertainers on music CDs. Laborers (called Providers in Mechanical Turk's Terms of Service, or, all the more casually, Turkers) can then search among existing errands and complete them for a money related installment set by the Requester. To place HITs, the requesters utilize an open application programming interface (API), or the more restricted MTurk Requester site. Requesters are limited to US-based substances (Brabham, 2013).
In MTurk, specialists set their own hours and are not under any commitment to acknowledge any work they don't wish to do. Since specialists are paid as foremen instead of representatives, requesters don't need to record shapes for, nor pay finance charges. Therefore, they are able to forward the lowest pay permitted by law. Specialists, however, must report their pay as independent work pay. The normal compensation for the numerous micro tasks allotted, on the off chance that they are done rapidly, is around a dollar an hour, with every undertaking averaging a couple of cents (Garcia, 2007).

Freelancer: If sorted by the sheer volume of clients and tasks, Freelancer.com is the world's biggest freelancing, outsourcing and crowd sourcing commercial center. They associate more than 15 million head honchos and specialists from over 247 nations, districts and regions. Their commercial center allows superintendents to employ specialists to work in a variety of sectors, ranging from programming improvement, composition, information entrance to bookkeeping and lawful administrations (Grier, 2013). A specialist or independent laborer is a term ordinarily utilized for an individual who is independently employed and is not so much dedicated to a specific head honcho long haul. While independent laborers are spoken to by organizations or hiring offices that solicit independent work, others work autonomously or use proficient affiliations or sites to get work. "Self employed entity" would be the term used to describe the expense and work class of this sort of laborer. The term outsourcing is common in our society and these inventive commercial ventures are based on that principle (Hemal & Menon, 2011).
As per the 2012 Freelance Industry Report, aggregated principally about North America outsourcing, a large portion of consultants do composing work, with 18% of specialists posting composition as an essential ability, 10% as altering/duplicate altering, and 10% as duplicate composition. 20% of consultants recorded their essential abilities as configuration. Next on the rundown were interpreting (8%), web advancement (5.5%), and advertising (4%). Elance, a web stage that join specialists with builders, overviewed its individuals and 39% recorded written work and altering as their fundamental expertise. Clientele for independent work relies on upon industry, abilities, and experience. Consultants may charge by the day, hour, a piece rate, or on an every task premise. Rather than a level rate or charge, a few consultants have created a pricing technique based on estimations of the worth of the outcomes to the customer (Libert & Spector, 2010). oDesk: oDesk is a worldwide online work stage where organizations and autonomous experts join and team up remotely. Situated in Mountain View and San Francisco, California, oDesk was established in 2003 by Greek business people Odysseas Tsatalos and Stratis Karamanlakis. oDesk and Elance have merged to improve the online work environment in a magnitude that was unforeseen previously. Elance-oDesk is reexamining the way we work. Today, more than 2 million organizations tap into Elance and oDesk to discover, contract, and pay the world's best specialists to complete tasks.This has made it less demanding than any time in recent history to assemble fruitful organizations and flourishing professions. Imaginative worldwide endeavors, little organizations, and new businesses alike can associate with the world's most skilled designers, creators, journalists, advertisers, bolster reps and administrators. If your employment can be completed via the web, you can enlist the best individual to do it (Livshits & Zimmermann, 2005). Its burgeoning success is why there has been a focus on improving current infrastructure rather than on innovating. oDesk permits customers to meet, contract and work with consultants and offices through the organization's stage. Forthcoming customers can post employment opportunities for nothing, and consultants may make profiles and offer to be employed, likewise, free of charge. The organization collects 10 percent of the exchange as fees. Installments are made through oDesk, which handles numerous accounting undertakings for the exchange. The exchanges are then moved into the foremen's records after a 6-day security period. The organization's site is totally in English, and all exchanges are made in U.S. dollars (McFarland, 2013).
Would You Rock This (WYRT): Like craftsmanship, music, television and different merchandise in the social economy, design outline has liquid and capricious worth. The individuals who work in this particular sector, confront high stakes of change in which "all hits are flukes" and "no one knows" what to offer, how to offer it, and at what cost. WYRT measurements represent the attributes of craftsmanship, i.e. it distinguishes "winning pictures" from the rest. The fundamental quality that differentiates a David Downton from others is in fact tantamount to his associates. WYRT Team of imaginative experts utilize the force of pictures to make headway with their customers. It's about more than what individuals are stating. It's about listening to what individuals are thinking and feeling, and comprehending the feelings underneath the dialect. WYRT discovers pictures that work, so you can unite, effect, or move your crowd to activity. Whether those pictures are for in-store shows, article spreads, promotions, or exhibitions - it directs you in creating the right picture for your business, shading by shading and signal by motion (Picard, 2010).
WYRT concentrates on what moves the viewer, so you have the significant serenity that measurable, constant results can offer. WYRT does it with certainties - measurable examination. Their mix of review upheld statistical surveying and surveys joined with subjective moment reaction convey to the surface pictures that move hearts, change psyches, and move stock. WYRT goes past customary surveying to comprehend what drives conduct, gages open purchaser conclusions, and tests the exact pictures that convey the desired information. WYRT staff performs opportune, precise research on business craftsmanship (with a specific concentrate on style delineation) and disperses these finding to their essential groups of onlookers: retailers, media, scholarly groups, custodians, workmanship purchasers, and craftsmanship commentators (Rasmussen & Williams, 2006).
Spoonflower: Spoonflower offers a place for people to plan, print and offer their own particular fabrics, wallpapers and blessing wraps. Two people who had little idea about materials established it in May 2008. The organization came into existence Stephen's wife, Kim, pitched him the idea of having the ability to print her own particular fabric for drapes. Turns out she wasn't the only one who thought so, the Spoonflower group has grown to over a million people now. People utilize their own particular fabric to make blinds, coverlets, garments, sacks, furniture, dolls, pads, surrounded craftsmanship, ensembles, standards and much, significantly more on spoonflower. The Spoonflower commercial center offers the biggest gathering of free fabric planners on the planet (Rodriguez & Rodriguez 2005).
Spoonflower is a start-up and a work in progress. Its development has been made conceivable by the energy of an overall group of individuals who are energetic about fabric, outline and making things. Along the way it has additionally gotten help, backing and exhortation from loads of neighborly individuals and associations, including [TC], NCIdea.org, North Carolina State University College of Textiles, and Expand Systems. Recommendations and input are constantly welcome and acknowledged (Schall, 2012).
Spoonflower's advanced material printing is done extensively via inkjet printers uniquely adjusted to run fabric. Dissimilar to routine material assembling, advanced printing involves next to no misuse of fabric, ink, water or power. Spoonflower prints utilizing eco-accommodating, water-built inks with respect to characteristic and engineered fiber materials. No extra chemicals are utilized as a part of the printing or planning methodology. This sort of printing has the included preferences of demonstrating more prominent outline, subtler element than screen printing, and permitting fashioners the capacity to use the same number of hues as they like in their plans. All Spoonflower fabric gets imprinted in Durham, North Carolina, by a happy band of fabric significant others (Scherer, Bänziger & Roesch, 2010).
Select One Specific Crowd Sourcing Platform
On the basis of the above discussion and in-depth analysis of the target markets and services provided by various crowd sourcing platforms, I believe WYRT is the most appropriate platform for the client (Forever 21). Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), Freelancer, and oDesk crowd sourcing platforms do not provide fashion industry related crowd sourcing services. They are rather more inclined to the tech industry and other online employment industry (Shankar & Levy, 2011).
On the other hand, WYRT and Spoonflower platforms are geared to the fashion industry crowd sourcing services of customers. Therefore, the competition was between them to be recommended to the client (Forever 21). On the basis of the in-depth analysis of both WYRT and Spoonflower crowd sourcing platforms, it can be recommended that WYRT would be more appropriate for Forever 21. This is because, Spoonflower mainly targets individual people and has not connected with businesses, and as such it would not be appropriate for Forever 21. WYRT sourcing platform provides the services of individuals, clients and businesses. Furthermore, it has the plus side of being related to fashion services, as such it is my belief that this platform would be better option for the client (Forever 21) (Singh & Waddell, 2004).

Specific Crowd Sourcing Platform
WYRT sourcing platform provides services such as business consulting, polling, focus groups, survey backed market research, artist consulting & support, and public relations and this will help Forever 21 achieve its objectives. Moreover, WYRT sourcing platform is associated with consumer magazines, advertising agencies, fashion illustrators, fashion & beauty, illustration agents, licensing agents, and galleries, which would be beneficial for Forever 21 to improve their position in the market (Smith & Chaffey, 2012).
Use of the Service of the WYRT Crowd Sourcing Platform to Create Business Value
WYRT crowd sourcing platform provides the services that can be used by Forever 21 to create its business value and achieve its objectives. It provides an opportunity for Forever 21 to enhance its in-store displays, special events, promotional efforts, and customer reward programs. Moreover, WYRT allows guests or clients to advertise their product, event, or service on its different platforms and pages that have a large numbers of members, subscribers and followers. On the basis of the above discussion, it can be concluded that WYRT crowd sourcing platform would be most appropriate platform for Forever 21 to achieve their objectives and to create business value (Sobh, Elleithy & Mahmood, 2008).

References
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