GEN S102F Assignment

In the past, people would do their purchases by walking in to small shops for clothes, cosmetics, daily goods or even furniture. They consider the product is worth buying or not by touching it, looking at the product to check its quality. They feel safe because the product they buy is visible and tangible. Due to the rapid development of e-commerce model (digital technology on business), the purchase method has changed to a new era. Some people shift to Taobao for shopping. Taobao is becoming more popular around the Asia, it is a platform for small businesses and individual entrepreneur have Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) retail online. Not only potential customer can do online purchase at home, but also everywhere that can access to network by using a mobile. I would like to discuss Taobao as a case study on its huge influences on our purchase experience, how it brings opportunities to business and its limitations.

Market Share of various Online purchase website, and Taobao occupies 62.7% of the market.

It is simple and convenient for customers have their purchase everywhere at anytime. People now can do their purchase through M-commerce via Taobao. Taobao Apps is available on ISO and Android devices, so that most of the users can download it. To better catch up with fast rhythm of life, business needs to be fast as well. The working hour of global has been increasing and also for Hong Kong. The more they work, the less time they have on leisure. Therefore, they do not have to go outside anymore for shopping but receiving the same experience, except the service provided by sales person.

taobao1

As you can see these pictures, buyers can search for the product by just entering a few keywords with over 760 million products, they can also add filtering such as popularity, sales volume, credit rating and price range for searching. These criteria add security to online purchase. The search results provide the price and seller information, customer can compare the price by just looking a few pages but not walking around the shops. Time and travel cost are saved. They can also read the comments of other buyers and the rating of seller before purchasing. Hence, they can check whether the product description by sellers is matched with the comments of buyers. Problem of product quality is prevented. Furthermore, Taobao will record the search history of every users so that they can find similar products, and it helps seller to know more about customers’ preference.

To sellers, the operating cost is decreased. Since they do not have to open a shop, they can better use the ‘rental expense’ so that they have more cash in hand. Also, sellers can adjust the inventory level according to the buyers’ order volume. In this way, because the product will not be kept for a long time, the quality of products is ensured. For example, some electronic goods may not function properly it they are kept for a long time. Seller can adopt a better inventory management strategy. For work, seller on Taobao can now work at their home only, which is totally different from the past. They only have to serve buyers when the buyers open a chat room. In the past, face-to-face communication is the main method, it would be difficult to serve several customer at a time. Sellers can use their time effectively for other work from now on.

To cope with the rise of e-commerce, a mature electronic payment system should be developed to ensure security. Alipay (支付寶) is a third-party online payment platform without transaction fees. It was launched by Alibaba Group and its founder Jack Ma. For every purchase via Taobao, buyers can make payment after they receive the desired products, and Alipay will transfer the fund from buyers to seller once the buyers are satisfied. This method is different from other e-money like Paypal, Alipay is safer so more and more Chinese buyers accept it, it occupies almost half of the online payment market of China. Another payment method in Hong Kong is by octopus on mobile. For example, buyers will receive QR code or payment code that contain the payment information. Then turn on the setting on NFC, buyers can pay the amount by putting their octopus card Near the NFC device (mobile), of course they need to download an apps called ‘Octopus’ which allows their octopus information connected with the mobile.

Since Taobao provide a simple platform for shopping, overspending may be a negative impact derived. For every purchase decision, it just a few clicks on the website. Therefore, it is too easy and convenient for consumption. People may not think seriously before each purchase as the price is not high and the system is very user-friendly. On the other hand, since the credit rating of seller is developed by buyers, if sellers get a bad comment, this would lower its rating and every buyer can see that bad comment. One extreme case is that a buyer from ShenYang found that the sweater he bought was smelly and he gave a bad comment. The seller told him to change the bad comment into good one but he refused to do so. He then received hundreds of calls per hour scolding him. This shows that risk cannot be eliminated even the buyer is right. We need to be a smart buyer so that loss can be avoided.
The case of buyer from ShenYang: http://news.xinmin.cn/shehui/2014/11/27/26074557.html

To me, everything has two sides and we should make use of this new opportunity, trying our very best to prevent any uncertainty. Taobao is still a huge trend on online purchase. Its business model has changed our lifestyle, but we should not let it takes control over our lives. At the same time, laws and regulations may help to fix the imperfections of online purchase platform so that both sellers and buyers can enjoy the best service and experience. Because Internet ‘remember’ everything, we need to better protect our personal information, it is very likely to have information leakage. The Taobao server will keep our personal information, and if we want to prevent hacker to take control of our account, we should regularly change our password and use complicated combination of numbers and capital words. As the world changes, we need changes too, let’s be a wise Internet user from this moment.

Reference:
1. Video ‘China M-commerce Market Research 2012’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClUiw_2SGA4

2. Alexa, taobao.com site overview
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/taobao.com#trafficstats

3. The Financialist, China’s Internet Giants Lead in Online Finance
http://www.thefinancialist.com/not-just-a-paypal-clone-chinas-internet-giants-chart-their-own-course/

4. Website of Taobao
http://www.taobao.com

5. Wikipedia, Taobao
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taobao

In this digitally advanced world, new developed digital technology brings new opportunity to human, to solve problem that human cannot. Robotic surgery is a huge evolution to human health. Robotic surgery is technological developments that use robotic systems in surgical procedures. Doctors and surgeons are no longer facing the limitations of minimally-invasive surgery. I would like to discuss the pros and cons of robotic telesurgery, together with my justification.

There is increasing demand for robotic surgery

The main advantage is that distance can be overcome having a robotic telesurgery. Take Lindbergh Operation as example, the movement of the robotic arm is digitalized, those data can be transferred to other countries’ robotic surgery system. Even though there is lack of experienced medical surgeons, or the patient is not able to travel far away for better medical treatment, telesurgery can solve the problem with a lower travel cost and time cost. However, there still have a chance of malfunction of robotic arm. The arm may cut at the wrong side of surgery site which leads to death. If the network is interfered, data cannot be transferred timely. These would stop the operation and patients suffer if the operation need to be completed in golden hour. Also, the cost is higher for this technology as more training needed to be provided and the robotic telelsurgery has its own set up process.

To patients, robotic telesurgery is great advancement because they can now recover in a faster way. Unlike minimally-invasive surgeries, patients only have to be cut for smaller and fewer wounds for operation. Less trauma and scarring than before. In this way, the patient would not bleed too much, it is easier for surgeons to control the whole operation and the blood flow but also reducing the risk of the operation. Thus there is a higher chance for patient to survive. Under robotic telesurgery, the recovery of patients is faster and they can leave earlier for work, the effect to their daily lives is minimized. To the hospital, faster recovery rate implies more beds and medical people for those patients in need. The hospital can now better reallocate its resources so that more patients can be saved.

At the same time, some operations need to cut a big wound on patients’ bodies, some of them may not able to do that when their body conditions are too weak. For example if patients are too old, they cannot bear a huge wound on the body, as their metabolism rate is too slow when comparing with others. They would feel much painful too after the surgery, some are even not allowed to move in a great extent because intense body movement would break the wound. However, robotic surgery only have to open up small wound, muscles will not be injured too much. Chances of infection is lowered as the area of wound is smaller, which reduce the contact to bacteria and virus.

To surgeons, robotic telesurgery can make up imperfections of human. In the past, the surgeons have to make very precise movement in doing surgery, sometimes their hands may not very stable which cause them to shake. If the duration of operation is very long like over 10 hours, the concentration of surgeons may decrease though there are several people to exchange for the role during the operation. The human performance is affected but not in the robotic surgery. With the aid of the robotic arm, the surgeon has remote on the robotic arm, they just have to sit at the control console. Many operating processes can be controlled in a steady way then before. The burden for surgeons is smaller. In the future, if this technology become more mature, program of robotic surgery can be developed to prevent error, by enter every data for same type of surgeries. As robot can study all information, robot can show human the successful cases and prevent failure, predictions on surgery process could be possible.

Moreover, it would be more flexible for surgeons to have complicated resection of organs and tumors. Some times they have to remove tumors that located at the important organs or main blood vessels. It would cause serious injuries to patients if the important blood vessels are cut. During robotic surgery, the risk of resection is smaller as the surgeons can monitor the whole situation through a 3D screen with the robotic arm. One example is that Hong Kong Adventist Hospital have a robotic arm with 7 dimensions to change that is more flexible than human hands, different kinds of movement are allowed for the robotic arm but not for the humans. The 3D screen gives surgeons a more detailed, specific and accurate view of the organ at that moment. At this situation, the performance of surgeons is greatly improved. You can see the similar set up and that it is not difficult to control the robotic arm from [1:11] of this video:

In my opinion, there is no doubt that robotic telesurgery brings more advantages than disadvantages, patients do not have to suffer a lot and enjoy better medical treatment nowadays. However, we cannot neglect the risks that robotic telesurgery creates. Professional should not one-hundred-percent rely on the robotic surgery. We have to eliminate those risks by developing a more complete system so that communication between two places can be stabilized and convey the public to accept it. Furthermore, if conditions allow this technology in underserved areas, well-developed countries should give more support to them by building networks and sending machines and technicians to there. I believe that medical professionals could create infinite in limited time, turning impossibles into possibles.

Reference
1.Website about Telesurgery
http://www.surgeryencyclopedia.com/St-Wr/Telesurgery.html

2. Video ‘Robot Surgeons are the future of Medicine’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb79-_hGLkc

3.Stewart Pinkerton, The Pros and Cons of Robotic Surgery
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304655104579163430371597334