Johannesburg - Inflation may be easing but SA's companies could help further stave off costs were they to adopt 'crowdsourcing', tipped to be the latest buzzword in the constantly morphing world of online community relations, says FNB.
The SA bank is hoping crowdsourcing will become the less costly alternative to outsourcing and that it will have special appeal for small as well as big business.
FNB is testing the programme using its own business test case, but iconic clothing range, Levi's, is adopting it next.
"My prediction for 2009 is that crowdsourcing is going to be one of the biggest buzzwords," said FNB Premier Banking social media strategist, Andy Hadfield, who is promoting the concept.
Hadfield was speaking to the media on Thursday, sharing insights of a crowdsourcing pilot project called 'IdeaBounty'. IdeaBounty posed an internal business problem generated by FNB to an online community which it then asked for creative solutions.
To provide an incentive to participants, called 'creatives' in FNB's online lexicon, a prize of $2 500 was offered. A panel of judges has already sat with the winner, who will be disclosed shortly. (The winner hails from Paris, no less.)
Is it better than outsourcing? Could be, said Hadfield, who said the new process saved money and added to the pool of knowledge.
"Crowdsourcing is untapped in SA. We have over three million broadband users in the country. That's a lot of brains that we can tap into," he said.
"If we had to hire 800 consultants as a think-tank, it would mean there would be more brains on board and more hours that we would have to pay.The costs would just grow exponentially. With crowdsourcing, the costs just stay the same," he said.
Ugly bank stealing ideas?
Hadfield conceded one disadvantage of crowdsourcing was that the community would: "think we are just a big ugly bank trying to steal all their ideas.
But by keeping the online community group closed - except to the judges - the online community's intellectual capital would be preserved. Feedback would also be provided to the "creatives" within the online community.
"We have to be transparent," he said, adding that another advantage of a closed group would be that the bounty, or winnings, could also be higher.
Only Hadfield and the CEO of premium banking, Robert Keip, sat down to review the ideas to avoid leaks, assessing each idea on practicality, novelty and effectiveness, and then providing feedback while interacting with the community every time.
Hadfield said that with campaigns like this, feedback is not normally given. "Sometimes you submit an idea and if you're lucky, in six months they might just get back to you."
In crowdsourcing, "interactiveness was necessary to keep people coming back to you with more ideas," he said.
In terms of the FNB pilot project, "creatives" had to find ideas on how to get FNB's premium clients - those who earn an annual salary of R350 000 or more - to switch to online banking, as a large portion (30%-40%) of their premium bankers weren't using online banking.
"You'd assume that someone uses internet banking when they earn more than R350 000 a year, but a lot of them don't."
Overall, the campaign received over 130 submitted ideas, of which 60% came from SA and 40% from the rest of the globe.
- Fin24.com