Web 2.0 tools support for SME start-up projects

Web 2.0 tools support for SME start-up projects Ivana Ogrizek Biškupić *, Igor Vrečko**, Krešimir Jurina *** * Accredited College of Business and Management Baltazar Adam Krčelić, Zaprešić, Croatia ** Faculty of Economics and Business, Maribor, Slovenia *** Polytechnic of Zagreb student, Specialist graduate professional study in IT Technologies programme, Zagreb, Croatia [email protected] , [email protected] , [email protected]

ABSTRACT - According to HTML development and Web 2.0 paradigm and considering business workshops in two year class project in higher education level, we have observed huge disproportion in awareness of free access and ICT support that web 2.0 provides. People who were participants in these workshops had minimum 5 years of work experience in business and management field (part time students of College of Business and Management „Baltazar Adam Krčelić“). Conclusions from these workshops had shown that most of the Croatian small medium enterprises SME spend huge amount of provided budget for unnecessarily part of ICT support. Considering these facts we have also noticed low level use of free open source Web 2.0 tools, partly, coming from not having an idea or not understanding Web 2.0 potentials and possibilities. The main focus in this paper is on SME who need technology support for various purposes by conducting research with the aim of developing and implementing lifelong learning curriculum as support for SME business start-up projects by using free Web 2.0 tools. Key words: web 2.0, SME, start-up projects, ICT business support.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Small and medium-sized enterprises SME play a central role in the European economy. They are a major source of entrepreneurial skills, innovation and employment. In European Union 23 million SMEs provide around 75 million jobs and represent 99% of all enterprises [25]. However, they are often confronted with market imperfections. SMEs frequently have difficulties in obtaining capital or credit, particularly in the early start-up phase. Their restricted resources may also reduce access to new technologies or innovation. In order to ensure that its enterprises remain competitive within the Single and global market, Croatian companies need to invest in new processes and new technologies including ICT development, development of new products, including testing and certification to ensure their compliance with international quality standards.

Accredited College of Business and Management Baltazar Adam Krčelić is private founded college with specificity of scientificallybased and practice-oriented studies, adapted to meet the requirements of the labor market and employers in the fields of economy, finances, communications and culture. There are 8 IT courses in 6 study programmes. We have developed curriculum in 3 IT courses to correlate with economy courses as support to entrepreneurship. The main focus of this curriculum development was on finding qualitatively better links within scientifically-based and practice-oriented knowledge and market needs. Participants of these workshops were our part-time students with minimum of 5 years working experience in business and management field. In these workshops we have observed huge disproportion in awareness of free access and ICT support that web 2.0 today provides which we find crucial for early start-up phase of obtaining capital for SMEs. These workshops had shown that most of the Croatian small medium-sized enterprises SME spend huge amount of provided budget for unnecessarily part of ICT support and we have also noticed low level use of free open source, Web 2.0 tools, partly, coming from not having an idea how to use or not understanding Web 2.0 potentials and possibilities at all. These conclusions leaded us to the project for lifelong learning curriculum development intended to founders, employments or future entrepreneur of micro, small and medium-sized enterprise SME with purpose to inform, teach and provide IT support information of low cost solutions and how to use all the potentials of today’s web-based 2.0 and 3.0 possibilities. II.

INFORMATION SUPPORT NEEDS IN SME BUSINESS START-UP PROJECTS

Information gathering and master over information needs proved to be very important for the success of SMEs. Firms that use more information had better business results and they are also expecting better performance in the future [13].

Significance of the information and information technology in SMEs is multi-layered and has attracted a lot of research interest in the past. ChienLiang Kuo et al [3] showed how SMEs adjust business processes (for example Supply Chain Management) in response to the introduction of Information Systems. Alquier and Tignol [1] analyzed management issues regarding risks and they propose a knowledge base supported by appropriate IS. The risk factors are further researched by Daim [4]. Since multiple risk management tools are available, Leopoulos et al. [11] evaluate sixteen software tools and demonstrate that the use of appropriate software tools may enhance business and project-related operations and reduce costs. Another decision factor in SMEs is the competitive intelligence (CI). Salles [22] proposes a definition of CI and analyses the use of CI by the SMEs. The implementation of reporting systems in SMEs is also researched. Fernandes et al. [5] present a methodology for the balanced scorecard implementation in a SME. Formal knowledge management structures are rarely used in SMEs state Hutchinson & Quintas [8]. Similar reports come from Zhang et al. [28], who researched learning in SMEs and discovered two types of SMEs: the firms, focused on the single individuals and innovative firms, encouraging development of tacit knowledge. The research efforts in the IS in project-oriented SMEs are largely focusing in supporting communication processes, management processes and knowledge management. Okamuro [15] for instance links the success of cooperative R&D with the quality, quantity and costs of external resources. The SMEs cooperation in R&D is further elaborated by Canavesio & Martinez [2], presenting a model of project oriented fractal company where all the project - and business components can be delegated among project partners. They (ibid.) imply that the enterprise model can be used to specify the requirements of an integrated information and management system for virtual SMEs networking. A case supported information model for the communication support is presented by Paech et al. The research in communication technologies is largely focused on internet based services, to provide, as explained by Redoli et al. [20], combined viewpoint of business and technology. The investigation in cooperation is upgraded by researching virtual teams [21] and virtual manufacturing (Banaszak & Zaremba, 2006). The formation and existence of virtual teams in SME environment is discussed by Matlay & Westhead, 2005. Rezgui [21] analyses virtual team-working effectiveness and he identifies issues related to technology adoption, team identification, trust, and motivation and promotes software application hosting, as opposed to the software-licensing model. The virtual manufacturing scheduling problems are explored by Banaszak & Zaremba (2006) who

propose a heuristic method for addressing scheduling problems in virtual manufacturing. To support the information needs in a multiproject business environment of SMEs, the information system should deal not only with the internal processes of a SME, but rather support information needs of all involved subjects. To find out which attributes need attention when developing a general IS model for a multi-project business environment, Perko and Vrečko [19] examined the business issues of project members. The main focus should be on the project communication and information sharing; on connecting planning and execution, and on providing diverse views on the project portfolios. Some of the main issues worth focusing on when looking for IS in SMEs are: •

supporting the management of limited resources, such as a budget, human resources and access to project partners with specific competences;

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connecting business goals and business results with project performance information;

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supporting intra and inter-project communication as well as connecting the project members and partners from within the community;

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supporting multi-task, multi-project workflow planning, execution and management;

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supporting project evaluation and decision making in project portfolio management, upgrading project management tools to project portfolio management tools;

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providing an environment for innovative processes, reducing the costs and risks in using and reusing innovations.

Despite the importance of information and information technology, the process by which SMEs invest in and gain benefit from information systems (IS) is largely unexplored. Levy et al. [12] try to explain this issue, although the variances in their results exist. Due to lack in the research many of the issues concerning the IS structure, the costs and the potential benefits remain unresolved. This often forces the SMEs to use its valuable resources to focus on IS issues, rather than on key business issues. Similarly and surprisingly, the way SMEs select and use IS did not received important attention in the past, regardless of their importance for SMEs strategic development as well as despite the fact, that information technology is one of the fastest moving field. Consequently, based on the rapid information technology development, information systems useful for business needs have been developing.

The demands for IS properties by project oriented SMEs are elaborated by Vrečko et al. [27], presenting an IS model that supports strategic and commercial multiple project operations. The model delivers information support for a project oriented business SMEs, whereas a model supporting the multi-project business environment is still missing. III. WEB 2.0 TOOLS AS CONVENIENT SUPPORT FOR SME'S BUSINESS START-UP PROJECTS Web 2.0 is built on the concept of reuse and relies on open, standards-based technology with required flexibility and scalability in dynamic environments. Web 2.0 technologies enable to create situational applications that rapidly unlock enterprise data and applications for business users and customers. Through aggregating and filtering corporate, individual and external information into customized and relevant business insight, Web 2.0 techniques help reduce information overload. To enable new dimensions of imagination and innovation across the business, IBM believes companies need to develop Web 2.0 approaches around three strategic components: economic impact, community value and enabling technology [9]. Enterprises increasingly rely on widespread teams and networks of people who need real-time access to one another and to common project resources. Ability to easily interact with customers, vendors and partners is critical to ongoing success. Business models based on Web 2.0 approaches create opportunities to adopt traditional sales and marketing strategies and reduce budget costs in future. Looking forward, web 2.0 and coming web 3.0 can potentially enable a much tighter connection between IT transformation and business transformation. Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises SMEs represent a great diversity of companies from high-tech businesses to start-ups tuned towards International markets, from more traditional companies to family businesses. There's a whole aspect of Web 2.0 that can drive genuine business value and significant competitive advantage. The whole point of Enterprise Web 2.0 is to put best practices for creating Web experiences into the hands of business people, Web designers, and users so that we make the most of the systems, users, and information that we [7]. Web 2.0 encourages us to put it all online, make it user organizable, findable, and to build a community around it. Many SMEs in Croatia use commercial software solutions even they are in start-up phase or having financing problems. Even though they don’t use open source and web 2.0 potentials enough but still not quitting paying for commercial ones. We have conducted a survey among our students of knowing the basics and potential of web based services that web 2.0 provides and how they can implement or just use them for free in their business or start-up projects and the results have showed (N:296) that 84

% doesn’t know for what in business they could use Web 2.0 and couldn’t define purpose. If we analyze predictors of these results we can conclude that there is still big disproportion in understanding the meaning of Web 2.0 and using some of the services. To understand Web 2.0 potentials means putting emphasis on collective creativity of employees who create new contents and knowledge through collaboration and personal contribution. The central element of enterprise 2.0 is the collective intelligence whereby employees who work on a joint project through the exchange of knowledge and experience contribute to increasing the value of knowledge which leads to easier and faster problem solving [10]. Development of Web 2.0 technologies in business replaces the cooperative form of cooperation (division of labor, where each person is responsible for a certain part of the job) with collaboration (working together in order to solve a problem). There are several ways that Web 2.0 changed web possibilities, one of them is using concept of folksonomy which represent opposite of taxonomy and is a style of collaborative categorization of sites using freely chosen keywords, often referred to as tags. Tagging allows multiple overlapping associations that the brain itself uses rather than rigid categories which is example for new possibilities in organizing data (Examples: del.icio.us and Flickr). More than ever, Web 2.0 opened access and possibility for anyone to upload free open source software to the web and to comment quality of the product as well. O’Reilly pointed [16] that infrastructure of the web relies on the peer production methods of open source and by that having an instance of collective, net-enabled intelligence (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl, PHP, Python code etc.). There are more than 100,000 open source software projects listed on SourceForge.net. Anyone can add a project, anyone can download and use the code and new projects migrate from the edges to the center as a result of users putting them to work. There are 80 now accessible free software’s for Business and Enterprise with focus on Finance, scheduling, Office management, Project Management, e-Commerce, Reporting, Knowledge Management, Modeling etc. For example cloud computing as form of Web 2.0 is more about evolving business models and how enterprises can pursue new opportunities through ICT. In Final Report for European Commission published in May 2012 about Cloud computing and it impact on e-Skills requirements [24] they analyze future development of cloud computing and role of SMEs. According to report from the 451 Market Monitor cloud computing marketplace will reach $16.7 billion in revenue by 2013 and according to Deloitte cloud-based applications will replace 2.34 pct. of enterprise IT spending in 2014 rising to 14.49 pct. in 2020. The overall conclusion is that enterprise spending on on-premise solutions will fall

as cloud computing reduces the need for licenses, hardware and software. Forrester forecasts that the global market for cloud computing will grow from $40.7 billion in 2011 to more than $241 billion in 2020. The total size of the public cloud market will grow from $25.5 billion in 2011 to $159.3 billion in 2020. The group of SMEs covers more than 23 million companies in Europe. The costs of external services now are low and they can be tried out on a shortterm basis, which means that companies have many alternatives and can gain economic advantages from a cloud solution compared to internal IT. They doesn’t have to reinvest into the hardware infrastructure in the business and do not need to buy sophisticated backup systems. This will provide them with long term benefit. There is also greater licensing flexibility as they can pay monthly rather than other accountancy systems with annual fees. Generally SMEs have great potential in Web 2.0 environment by getting their business up to date and by that becoming more competitive and also not negligible in reducing their budget as well. IV.

AN OVERVIEW TO SOME WEB 2.0 TOOLS POTENTIALS

According to McAfee Enterprise 2.0 [14] is a concept of implementation and use of Web 2.0 tools in business. He defines six components of Enterprise 2.0 infrastructure and defines them as SLATES (Search, Links, Authoring, Tags, Extensions and Signals). Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 tools are vital to the survival of today enterprises and it seems almost impossible to name some major company that does not use Facebook or Twitter as a tool to communicate with customers. In this chapter we provide an overview to some free tools that we recommend and have implemented as workshops in our lifelong learning curriculum for SME employers or owners with aim of getting great benefits by Web 2.0 potentials. SOCIAL NETWORKING TOOLS Elgg is software that offers blog, networking, community, collection of news using feeds aggregation and file sharing features. In fact, it is one of the most versatile pieces of software that offers almost everything you need to start a social networking site. Mahara is designed as a platform to allow its users to demonstrate their life-long learning, skills and development to selected audiences. With Mahara, you can create an e-Portfolio platform and set up an online learner community. Also recommended: Loved by Less, Xoops, Around Me, etc. WEB CMS (CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM) Joomla is an open source content management system (CMS) for publishing content on the World Wide Web and intranets and a model view

controller (MVC) Web application framework that can also be used independently. WordPress is an open source blogging tool and a content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL. It has many features including a plugin architecture and a template system. Wiki. Fundamental feature of Wiki system is that all employers of enterprise, regardless of the position, are participating equally in the process in creating new knowledge. As blogs, Wiki systems are also used in the project purposes. Project Wiki systems have more advanced structure then blogs, because they are not limited with chronological publication of information, and they are allowing new content publication to all members of the project team. Also recommended: Drupal, Typo3, e107 etc. WEB DATABASES MySQL is the world's most used open source relational database management system (RDBMS) as of 2008 that run as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. Mongodb.It is an open source, high-performance, scalable, schema-free & document-oriented (JSONlike data schemas) database. There are ready to use drivers for most popular programming languages like PHP, Python, Perl, Ruby, JavaScript, C++ . Also recommended: Apache CouchDB, Neo4j etc. OFFICE Apache OpenOffice (AOO) is an open-source office productivity software suite. It descends from OpenOffice.org (OOo), which was an open-sourced version of the earlier StarOffice. OpenOffice contains a word processor (Writer), a spreadsheet (Calc), a presentation application (Impress), a drawing application (Draw), a formula editor (Math), and a database management application (Base). LibreOffice is a free office suite, developed by The Document Foundation. It is descended from OpenOffice.org, from which it was forked in 2010. The LibreOffice suite includes a word processor, spreadsheet, graphics editor, slideshow creator, database and math formula writer. Also recommended: Neo Office, Google Docs, Koffice etc.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT Codendi is an open-source collaborative development platform offered by Xerox. From only one interface, it gathers, all the needed tools for software development teams: management and versioning of code, bugs, requirements, documents, reporting, tests etc. It is mainly used for managing software project processes. Redmine is a flexible project management web application. Written using Ruby on Rails framework, it is cross-platform and cross-database. It includes calendar and gant charts to aid visual representation of projects and their deadlines.

Also recommended: Project Pier, Trac, Project HQ etc. LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (LMS) Docebo. In use in corporate and higher education settings. Offers support for a number of different learning models and is compatible with SCORM 1.2 and 2004. It offers interfaces to external systems such as video conferencing and HR systems. eFront is designed to assist with the creation of online learning communities while offering various opportunities for collaboration and interaction through an icon-based user interface. The platform offers tools for content creation, tests building, assignments management, reporting, internal messaging, forum, chat, surveys, calendar and others. Also recommended: Moodle, Dokeos, Claroline etc. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video in a standardized format. An RSS document (which is called a "feed", "web feed", or "channel") includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship. Main feature of RSS is decartelization of content, way of connecting web content using feed of content that is consistent of XML document. SOCIAL BOOKMARKING allows users to storage, classification, search and share websites that interest them. Tools allow registered users on a remote computer to save bookmarks, tagging whole or only parts of the website, add notes, share them with other users in the network and view bookmarks saved by other users. PODCASTING. Basic purpose of podcasting is creating your own multimedia files, which can be easily published on the web. Using podcasting in business makes possible to convert business meeting, professional conference or job offer into multimedia format, which can be accessed by each employee or business partner. DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM Organizations are leaving a paper form manipulation of documents and transferring to a digital control system. In this way, it reduces the risk of data loss, reduce the need for space, facilitating the management of documents and finding them because system uses its mechanisms for navigation and research of indexed documents that are centrally available. SOCIAL NETWORK. A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on facilitating the building of social networks or social relations among people who, for example, share

interests, activities, backgrounds, or real-life connections. SME can through these services create their own profile and present their business offer to potential clients or business partners. MIND MAPS are diagrams created by the radial reflections that are used for the presentation of generated ideas. Mind maps can be used in all areas of business planning, organization, negotiation, project management etc. The basic advantages of these types of diagrams are the development of new knowledge, saving resources, and effective problem solving. E-PORTFOLIO is a digital database on the web in which employees store their knowledge and experience in the form of multimedia data, with the goal of sharing this information with others. In this way, companies can better take advantage of a complete inventory of knowledge and experience of their employees and present themselves in a much better way to potential customers, business partners and investors. CLOUD COMPUTING describes „on-demand“ IT, with infrastructure, applications and data distanced from users and held on remote internet servers. It represents a new consumption model, where software is accessed directly through web browser as if it were installed conventionally on the user's computer. Cloud computing has been discussed and hyped in recent years, but 2011 showed an increased use of cloud solutions in both large and small companies. The analysis [24] shows that SMEs can create business value in relation to business processes in four dimensions, namely business revenue and growth, agility, cost reduction and innovation. Cloud computing can potentially enable a much tighter connection between IT transformation and business transformation. Innovative ICT practitioners and managers think business transformation first, then how technology enables it. V.

CONCLUSIONS AND PROPOSITIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

In the field of support and development of SMEs, Croatia, and similar Slovenia, is still lagging behind the most developed and also average developed EU countries Singer et al. [23]. In the paper we identified better management of information and use of state-of-the-art and relatively cheap or even free information technology and information systems as a promising tool among different possible ways to decrease this lag. While significance of the information and information technology in SMEs has attracted a lot multi-layered research interest, the process by which SMEs invest in and gain benefit from information systems (IS) is largely unexplored. Web 2.0 and forthcoming web 3.0 tools proved to have important role in helping SMEs to overcome their financial and other

resources limitations which imped them to acquire necessary information systems. In the paper numerous web 2.0 tools have been shortly presented. The extent of presented web 2.0 tools speaks about a great potential this field have, while actual use of many of them till today was very limited. In the future for sure there is a need to develop a platform which would be used by SMEs as starting point to get to know with different open information systems (free or very cheap) assured through web 2.0 and web 3.0 technology. Further on such platform would need to help SMEs to quickly implement and start to use to specific situation adapted tool. Obstacles perceived by entrepreneurs in the form of lacking appropriate IS tools to startup and to further develop their firm’s would vanish and they would be able to focus themselves more on the making business and not so much on developing support for making business. VI. [1]

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