E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen’s adoption strategies.

Current application of e-government in Malaysia--E-filling—


Renew road tax online

Dr Norraesah said the online service enabled the public to renew their road tax from anyplace with Internet access and at anytime, via www.myeg.com.my and www.jpj.gov.my.

For RM2.75, you can now renew your road tax online and, for an additional RM6, have the road tax delivered to you the next day in the Klang Valley.

The delivery fee for those living outside the Klang Valley is RM8, and RM10 for those in Sabah and Sarawak.

Driving license renewal
Payment for renewal driving license






KWSP i-account
provided free of change for i-account new registration.

E-perolehan

The electronic procurement system, better known as ePerolehan, streamlines government procurement activities and improves the quality of service it provides.

ePerolehan converts traditional manual procurement processes in the Government machinery to electronic procurement on the Internet.

ePerolehan allows suppliers to present their products on the World Wide Web, receive, manage and process purchase orders and receive payment from government agencies via the Internet.

The supplier's product catalogue is converted into the form of an electronic catalogue or eCatalogue, which can be viewed from any desktop with a web browser. The supplier is able to submit quotations, obtain tender document and submit tender bid through ePerolehan.

Perolehan allows suppliers to register or renew their registration with the Ministry of Finance through the Internet. Suppliers are able to submit application, check application status and pay registration fees through ePerolehan.

Common problems encounter by consumers.
The consumers may be not familiar using e-government service instead of they will go to the government center to pay their tax rather than using e-filling or e-payment.

Suggest ways to e-government that the consumer will use e-government services.
In my opinion, guidance is the beginning step that the government needs to apply to coach and guide Malaysian citizen on how to use e-government service online and the government should provides some campaign or seminar about various types of e-government services general information.

http://www.mscmalaysia.my/topic/Governments

http://www.malaysia.gov.my/EN/Pages/default.aspx

http://home.eperolehan.gov.my/home/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=193&Itemid=477&lang=en

Review a local e-commerce site

Blooming.com.my is a local e-commerce site that selling flower and other small gifts such as cards bears, gourmet baskets and etc. They provide up to 100 pieces photos of hand bouquets. I’m sure that you could find you ideal bouquets in this site.

Similar to other e-commerce site, Blooming.com.my provide member registration and log in, shopping cart, search engine and so on. However, they provide some services that only members are able to read through, such as order tracking, gift reminder, address book and online payment.

I get attracted to this website because I have found out that this Blooming.com.my not only provides delivery services to Selangor (where their physical store is located), but to all major towns area). Furthermore, they do accept online credit card payments, online banking and mobile payment. Besides that, the speed of clicking around the product in the website is considered quite smoothly and faster.

For consumer purpose, Blooming.com.my has provided order tracking service where you can trade your order on the delivery status. In addition, live support is also provided so that customer could make enquiries on the spot, no need to waste money to make a call. There is a “Tips corner” that teaching customer on selecting and arrangement of flowers.

In conclusion, although all the features in Blooming.com.my are simple (not much special), but it is enough for a basic internet user to deal with e-commerce. Basic internet user would not need too much or complicated steps in ordering and searching in the website. Nevertheless, in my opinion, Blooming.com.my has to improve in their hand bouquets and also others product’s picture. Indeed, they are providing good services but the photos are not really attracting people. After changing this, I think would be more visitors and customer to view though Blooming.com.my.

A discussion on E-learning offered in Malaysian universities: Pros and Cons from students perspective

In twenty-first century, the traditional teaching method by most of the universities worldwide has evolved into a more advanced and technological method through the introduction of e-learning. It is the modem process of education where part of the learning experience takes place without face to face communication between the teacher and his students. It is also known as distance learning. The most common method of e-learning is where tutors or lecturers post up several course modules on the university intranet (for example, wble of UTAR), and students will have to access to that intranet to get the materials that they needed as well as bulletin boards in order to keep them up to date. However, there are some pros and cons in adopting these technologies. In Malaysia, e-learning was begun in the late 1980's and MARA University of Technology (UTM) is one of the universities that offering distance learning during 1990.

Without much questions, e-learning is the innovative and advanced way of learning, however, it is significant to discuss both its pros and cons as well.

Pros
E-learning provides accessibility to all students irrespective of their residence. It can help students to communicate with their tutors, get clarifications regarding their subjects and study and access teaching materials through the e-libraries. Besides that, it also provides wider learning options for students, where it is not restricted to the geographic location. In other words, it means that a student studying in Malaysia can still access to the resources uploaded by foreign University. This makes the life of a student easier in his process of study and learns more about foreign knowledge. This also builds a link between local and foreign students from all over the world. Furthermore, more information or opinions can be exchanged among them.

Another advantage of e-learning is its time flexibility. Students can get online resources, communicate with his tutor or class mates, send his query and write term paper at any time he can get access to the Internet. Students' interactions have become much easier than face-to-face communication.

Moreover, online students have the capability to study at their own pace. In a traditional setting, students need to finish their given assignments within a particular period of time, while through online education they can study whenever they are free. The online faculty assigns projects with a deadline and students can finish their projects at whatever time that they find feasible before the deadline.

Therefore, e-learning enable students to reduce travelling cost and time because of the accessibility, time flexibility of e-learning as well as the capability of the student to study at their own pace with e-learning.

Cons
One of the cons of using e-learning is that it might be costly. In order to use e-learning, certain installation costs are needed, such as high-speed internet costs and software applications. Therefore, it requires some costs to implement e-learning.

Besides that, unmotivated learners or students with poor study habits might find it difficult to follow e-learning as they are not familiar with the structure and routine of the process. They may require much more time to understand it.

E-learning sometimes might not be working successfully due to the slow or unreliable internet connections. This may cause inability to access to the resources or inability to upload the resources in time.

Furthermore, lack of face-to-face communication with lecturers contributes lack of understanding between a student and a lecturer. While a lecturer cannot easily feel a student's demands, interests and motivations, a student can simply be lazy being non-motivated enough and having free time schedule for his e-learning. This may result a low scope of the student's knowledge and the lecturer's accusation in lack of proficiency.

Corporate Blogging : A new marketing communication tool for companies

A corporate weblog is published and used by an organization in order to reach its organizational goals and nowadays it is widely used worldwide. The example of the corporate blog included internal, external and CEO Blogs. Currently, most of the browsers like Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer 7 enable readers to read the recent posts easily without truly visit the blog through supporter of RSS technology.
According to research of NewPR Wiki, there was 58 (11.6%) of the Fortune 500 were blogging as of 17/5/2008. One of the successful blogs is Amazon Web Services Blog by Amazon.com that contains Amazon web services, products, tools and developer information. It helps to improve the communication and its customer services, attract more people to consume and discuss new products online.

Corporate blogging’s functions included providing a clear mind map or editorial guidelines of overall marketing or communication strategy to its employees and third parties with organization communication plan and media mix. Besides that, it encourages employee participation in contribution of expertise, free discussion of issues or topics and deal with it, collective intelligence, be a direct communication between various layers of an organization and shares their views with others employees, teams or spokespersons publicly. Furthermore, it can be used to announce new products and services, explain and clarify policies of the company and to react on public criticism on certain issues. Business blog can interact with a target market on a personal level by building a level of credibility and asking for their feedback on products and services.

Advantages ….

The advantage of blogs is that posts and comments are easy to reach and follow due to centralized hosting and generally structured conversation threads. Company blogs executed well build credibility and project a message of self-confidence. Examples of reasons to start a corporate blog would include; Employment Branding, Product Launch, Public Relations, Marketing Campaigns, Consulting Services, Vendor Relations, Media Relations, and Innovative Ideas used to established Industry Expertise.

Corporate blogging has become the new marketing communication tool for companies because it is a way of promoting about anything whether it may be public relations, marketing a new product, improving brand image and for research. Moreover, blog achieves the goal of growing a business because the company expands as it caters to online customers who may come across it. Blogs are a great tool of promoting a business; it can help in interacting with users and display their feedback. When other people view the testimonials made by customers themselves, they will be satisfied as they know that the company is listened to their comments.

Furthermore, corporate blog also is a form of advertising for companies because customer will seek there again and again. Indirectly, there has become an advertisement to the customers. There is a variety of information available in the blog. Therefore, a successful marketing through blogs creates or enters an area of interest where the readers are known the products or services. Finally, the corporate blogging as a success communication tool because company may do public speaking, to build trustworthiness for themselves and boost up their company’s credentials. Blogging has become a new less time consuming and less expensive way to reach potential and current customers.

Disadvantages …

Corporate blogging might easily involved in defamation and invasion of privacy or to breach information security and loss of company confidentiality. (Wired News, 2005) Hence, this fear has stopped 22 percent of employees from writing a corporate blog. Besides that, it will create an expectation of updating the blog regularly and the time that taken in writing a blog will cause loss of $ 759 billion in productivity every year. Additionally, a new style of communication will be mastered since corporate blogging become popular in these recent years. In conclusion, corporate blogging is getting important for corporation to deliver the message privately or publicly since it has brought many pros even thought the cons come along with it.

A review on a post on Legal from My E-Commerce blog

Malaysian government announced that there will be some new guidelines to be enforced soon on Internet and cyber cafes.


Cyber cafe normally attracts kids and children to play games. Thus, there are guidelines to be enforced to protect new the youth is to restrict minors under the age of 18 entering internet cafes. Such as those under 12 years old must be accompanied by parents or guardian and only allowed to stay up to 10.00pm. However, only the government regulation is not enough to prohibit all youth enter into cyber cafe those under 12 yrs old. The parent is play the important role to prohibit the youth enter the cyber café.

Another guideline is enforced to protect to the youth from the influence of internet cafes. However, only the government check is not enough to block all prohibited sites from users. Compulsory installation of protective software can be one of the considerations to strengthen the initiatives.

The government announced the internet and cyber cafe is prohibited from providing gaming activities, gambling, pornography, music and publications with negative element, besides that the cigarettes and alcohol to be prohibited from being sold in the cyber cafe. This guideline is enforced to prevent the Internet and cyber cafes from turning into the social ills, and can reduce the social ills.

Illegal internet cafes should be punished such as legal internet cafes that fail to meet important guideline will have their licenses revoked. The legal duties are only claimed on operators or customers. It would be more effective if the responsibilities are imposed on staff. The business of internet and cyber cafe still can survive if provide some promotion and explain to customer in respect of these guidelines.

Application of prepaid cash card

What are the Prepaid Cash Cards ???
Prepaid cash cards are the cards, which mostly made up from plastics that can be used to make payment for goods and services and even to withdraw money. However, before using it, the user needs to load the card with a sum of money. Therefore, a prepaid cash card allows the consumers to purchase something even when they don’t have the cash to pay for it. It has benefited the consumers in their everyday life.

Prepaid Cash Cards – the advantages …
Nowadays so many people tend or already have their own prepaid cash cards, why is it so? The advantages are vary as below :

1. Remain in control of one’s money, keep track all of activity online or by phone – People can limit their spending and plan how much they want to spend in advance with their prepaid cash card. Thus, spending is controlled by how much one has in the account. Besides that, prepaid cash cards give consumers a better alternative in keeping record of your spending.

2. Prepaid cash cards are always convenient all the time. It can be used at just anywhere anytime. Consumers can use it at their groceries shopping, petrol filling, utilities payment, movie tickets, airline tickets, download songs online, mobile phone bill, fast food or restaurant and even online shopping or any online payment! Or, they can even use it to withdraw cash from the ATM. Besides that, having a prepaid cash card is certainly quick and easy. Transaction can be made just within a minute. All you have to do is hand swap your card on the counter, sign on the receipt and collect your card and a copy of the receipt.
3. Eliminate check cashing fees and enjoy immediate access to your money through direct deposit of your pay check, government payment or other income sources, no bank account needed.

4. Avoid bounced check fees; always know exactly how much money you have to spend. The prepaid card can help protect you from over spending.
5. Having a prepaid cash card is surely safer than carrying cash. Prepaid cash card protect consumers from unauthorized transactions even when the card is stolen or lost. Plus, these cards can also be replaced once it is stolen or lost. Unlike cash, once it’s lost, it’s gone forever.
6. Free balance alerts –Some card providers will inform users on how much cash they have.

Examples of Prepaid Cash Card all around the world
Obopay
It is one of the prepaid cash cards that are similar as debit cards because both are using existing money rather than borrowing. However, personal identification number has to be keyed in for the transaction to be authorized if using prepaid cash cards. It is considered as most secure and safe financial transaction card because can it likes a portable access point to checking account. Nevertheless, it could not use for online shopping and in “quick pay” terminals that have a card reader but no keypad to enter a personal identification number.

Pre-paid Vista Cash Card is issued by Four Oaks Bank & Trust Company that given the opportunity for consumers with poor credit record and young children by not spending more than the balance on the card. Visa permits travelers access to money at automated teller machines in 65 countries and book the train tickets by offering prepaid cash card such as Metro Card in New York City.

Touch ‘n Go (TnG) smart card is used by Malaysian for electronic payment system to toll expressway and highway. It is expanding its business to retail purchase by starting with fast food industry that enables consumers to buy dough nut, burger or fast-food from 21 outlets such as Burger King, 7-Eleven, Dunkin’ Donut. It is imitating the success of Hong Kong’s Octopus Card by setting 5 to 10% of the card holders for retail purchase as current target of the company.


Octopus Card was launched in Hong Kong on year 1997, September. It is a rechargeable contactless stored value smart card to transfer electronic payments in online in offline system. It is widely used in payment system for transportation, supermarkets, fast food restaurant, car parks and other pint of sale application such as service station s and vending machines that have achieved good outcomes.

In a nutshell, prepaid cash card is indeed a good invention that makes life easier, it contributed a lot in eliminating debt risk with no chance to spend too much as the balance is limited to the amount reloaded, and the convenience that it provide is indeed great.

A review on a post on e-tailing from My E-Commerce blog

Touch n Go card is well known as a pre-load cash card which is mainly use for transportation and toll collection purpose. Recently, Touch n Go Sdn Bhd (TNGSB) has been introduced in both KL International Airport (KLIA) and Low-Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) since February 2008.


Touch n Go card, famous for its usage as a pre-load cash card used mainly for transportation and toll collection, is now expanding their applications and services towards the retail purchase, starting with particularly the fast-food industry.
One of the application offered is enable the user to buy burger, doughnut or fast food from 21 outlets involved in a pilot scheme for Touch n Go card. Among the participating outlets are A&W, Burger King, Dunkin' Donut, 7-eleven, Carrefour hypermarkets, Caltex convenience stores and Cineleisure. The company is targeting 5-10% of the carholders to use the card for retail purchase, emulating the success of the Hong Kong's Octopus card (20% usage for retail purchase.)

In my opinion, TNG card has been move forward to fast food industry. However, this facility only available in Klang Valley, which means most of people, especially those not around Klang Valley, has no chance to really participate in the usage. This will lead to lower usage in current and also future. I suggest that they should try to speed up in expanding this facility as what they have planned. So this will give benefits to everyone including TNGSB by increasing the usage of TNB card in retail purchase.

Electronic currency

Electronic currency (also known as electronic money, digital money, digital money, digital or digital currency) refers to money or scrip which is exchanged only electrometrically. Typically, this involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems. Example of electronic currency such as Electronic Funds Transfer ( EFT) and direct deposit also. It is a collective term for financial cryptography and technologies enabling it.

Digital money is a system of debits and credit, used to exchange value, within another system. Also sometimes the term electronic money is used to refer to the provider itself. A private currency may use gold to provide extra security, such as digital gold currency like e-gold and c-gold. Many systems will sell their electronic currency directly to the end user, such as Paypal and Wedmoney.

Advantages

Banks offer many services to the customer that transfer funds, contribute to their retirement plans and offer a variety of other services without having to handle physical cash or checks. Customers do not have to wait in lines and this provides a lower-hassle environment.

Debit cards and online bill payments allow immediate transfer of funds from an individual’s personal account to a business’s account without any actual paper transfer of money. This offers a great convenience to many people and businesses alike.

Disadvantages

Although many benefit to electronic currency, there are also many disadvantages. Three include fraud, failure of technology, possible tracking of individuals and loss of human interaction.

Fraud over digital cash has been a pressing issue in recent years. Hacking into bank account and illegal retrieval of banking records has led to a widespread invasion of privacy and has promoted identity theft.

Future evolution

Furthering network evolution in terms of digital cash development, a company names Digi-Cash is at the focus of creating an e-cash system that would allow issuers to sell electronic coins at some value. When they are purchased they come under someone’s own name and are stored on his computer or under his online identity. At all times, the e-cash is linked to the e-cash company and all transactions go through it, so the e-cash company secures anything that is purchased. Only the company knows your information and will properly direct purchases to your location.

Mobile payment systems in Malaysia: Its potentials and consumers’ adoption strategies.

Mobile payment is also referred to as mobile wed payment or WAP billing and it is the collection of money from a consumer via a mobile device.

One of the mobile payment in Malaysia, Mobile Money, is guided by Mobile Money International Sdn Bhd. Mobile Money provides any handphone users the convenience to pay anyone, on any time, at anywhere. This system is a PIN-based Mobile Payment solution. It unlocks the power of the mobile phone to make payment, allowing registered users to pay for goods and services at anytime, anywhere using only a mobile phone coupled with a 6-digit security PIN (Personal Identification Number) via SMS (Short Messaging Service). This gives the freedom to shoppers to buy product online and pay the merchant using his/her mobile phone without being physically present at the store.

There is a great potential for mobile payment services in Malaysia since it is changing the behavior of users and increasing the demand over time. Supportive actions and collaborations with banks and handset vendor will helps in speed up this demand. Beside, mobile money might replace cash or face to face transaction since it is so convenience and safe to deal with. Furthermore, people now a day become more and busier, mobile payment will helps them to save time and sometime also the transportation fee.

A consumer adoption is necessary for the success of mobile payment, yet consumer may be not familiar with this payment technology. Mobile money has adopting three strategies to increase consumer adoption in this system:

i) Secure Mobile money provides highest security to protect their user while doing payment.
ii) They conform to best practices in industry, participating bank and regulated relevant authorities.
iii) Rewarding Mobile Money rewarded user while shopping or purchasing using Mobile Money System

http://www.mobile-money.com
http://www.neowave.com.my/mobilemoney_overview.asp

Credit Card debts: Causes and Prevention

The more people charge to their credit cards, the greater the profits made by the credit card companies. The credit card company receives a percentage of each transaction as a merchant fee. But the big money comes from the credit card users: the more you spend using your credit cards the higher the probability you will borrow money from the credit card company at steep interest rates, get hit with fees for exceeding your credit limit, and incur larger penalties for late payments.

The psychology of credit cards themselves makes it easy for you to spend more money than you should. If you're going to use credit cards wisely and profitably, this is crucial to understand.

When you charge something to a plastic credit card, it doesn't feel as though you're really spending money. Why not? Because when you spend cash, you tend to withdaw an amount from your checking account to cover multiple purchases over a certain time period - say a few days or a week. When you spend that cash, you're aware that you are using up that informal budget. If you use the cash faster than you had planned, you're immediately aware that you might be overspending.

Reasons why consumer overspend

Poor financial management-(spends first, manage later)

Consumer is facing lack of knowledge and understanding about the nature and forms of money, how it is used and the consequences of consumer decisions in manage their major portion of income will spend on important stuff such as basic needs e.g. food, shelter and clothes rather than unimportant stuff such as desire wants e.g. luxury car, cigarettes and alcoholic beverages.

Lack of patience-(want own it now)

Some people want instant gratification. They see something and they want it immediately, regardless of whether they have the money to afford it. They lack the patience to wait even a short amount of time, and therefore they spend even when they don't have the money available to cover the purchase.

Sense of power-(buy anything)

Spending money actually makes many people feel more powerful. Whether it is handing over a wad of cash or pulling out a gold card to charge money, the simple act of spending a large amount of money gives them a rush of false power.

How to control Credit Card debt

Understand how to keep personal financial records.

For example, know that records of income, expenses are necessary for income tax purposes; understand the consequences of poor financial management.

Evaluate the relationship between spending and using credit responsibly.

For example, recognize impulse buying behavior might limit future choices; factors such as debt levels and essential expenses should be considered when deciding a reasonable credit limit.

Make sophisticated choices when comparative shopping.

For example, develop personal spending criteria based on income and needs, access information from a variety of sources (including the internet), about goods and services and apply criteria.

Teens Must Be Taught How Money and Credit Cards Works

The Crisis of Credit Visualized in Forbes.com

http://video.forbes.com/fvn/credit09/the-crisis-of-credit-visualized

Credit.com's help you take charge of your finances and eliminate debt fast.

http://www.credit.com/products/debt/

Top 10 Reasons People Over Spend

http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf000599.tip.html

Understand Consumer Credit

http://www.pay-off-debt-guide.com/consumer-credit.html