Multi-Purpose Apps and the Social Media: What’s in it for the Sustainable Development Goals and Commerce to a Social Enterprise?
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The growth rate of Social Enterprises (SE) in Malaysia marks a significant change in the development of young enterprising leaders and in their innovation to salvage for the needy towards a sharing economic model for the well-being of the underprivileged society. This paper explores the support of Social Media (SM) and other web applications used by a social enterprise in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia using a case study approach that looks into (1) the influences of SM and web apps in current business ways of work (2) readiness of the SE staff and beneficiaries to adapt and use these technologies (3) approaches to sustain business production through the digital means which are investigated based on preliminary data gathered from semi-structured interview and an online survey using the social media platform following a qualitative research framework. Findings from the study found high staff readiness to adapt and adopt these web-based apps however, these productivity tools were found to be functionally single purposed to the needs of a work process when compared to the choices of software variability and its’ low-cost impact. A positive correlation is noticeable with small orders in production and delivery handling on a variety of these web and mobile platforms to the worker productivity. Additionally, social media tools consider the development of digital communities for its beneficiaries, keeping informed of the SE social impact values and the ‘Sustainable Development Goals’(SDGs) and as their means to seek work opportunities. A web portal to streamline the SE activities is proposed to facilitate order placement, processing, and delivery. Further the web system is expected to offer personalized customer experience through order customization, and for improvement feedback that goes in line with the causes for the SDGs in consideration of sustainably sourced and made products ie. pre-loved items.
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