Individual

assignment
Assignment:

Student name: WU YUMEI

Student ID: 1008352
Class name: Entrepreneurship and new
venture creation
Lecture: David Teo
Date : 10 / February / 2017
 TABLE OF CONTENT

1 Table of content
1
2 Introduction

.1
3 Main Body Narrative
..2
4 The appeal of the gig economy
.2
5 Why consumers support the gig platforms
2
6 Why do people want to work for the gig platforms
..3
7 The issues with the gig economy
3
8 Conclusion

4
9 References

.4

Introduction
These days there are a number of people who are finding jobs through
online platforms such as Grab where people can sign up to fetch people
from one point to another as well as platforms such as freelancer.com
which provides people to look for jobs such as data entry or even to help
run surveys. (Motoyama, M., McCoy, D., Levchenko, K., Savage, S. and
Voelker, G.M., 2011.) This new way of doing business and allowing people
to find gigs like this much easier is called the Gig Economy and is
currently transforming the way that business is being done in the world.

In the past entrepreneurs needed to register a company and set up an

office before they could officially start hiring people and running their
business. Running into marketing expenses as well as the cost of daily
running of the operations from telephone lines, internet bills and more.
Most often they will also need to go out to find their own business clients
as well as convince their customer to sign up with their services. This is
different with the Gig Economy because the customer is able to instantly
find their customers through the platforms without incurring too much
cost in marketing as well as operations. (Sundararajan, A., 2015.)

Main Body Narrative

The appeal of the gig economy
The main reason that draws people towards the gig economy is the fact
that they are able to start their business up and running with little to no
startup capital or risk. (De Stefano, V., 2015.) In most of the gig platforms
all they will need to do is to start an account going and key in their
personal details and bank account number and they are ready to pick up
passengers, provide a delivery service or perhaps even help to run
errands. (Friedman, G., 2014.) Also usually these businesses are large
corporations with international presence which are backed by a marketing
team that promotes their sales and services to people locally as well as all
around the world. Platforms such as the ride sharing app Grab or Uber has
their presence in different countries in the world. This makes visitors from
different countries aware of the service standard that the ride sharing app
provides making it easier for people to trust the service that is provided
by the country. Because they use the app at home as well they feel that
their transaction is much safer and that they will be able to trust the
company if there is any problems that may arise. (Posen, H.A., 2015.)

Apart from this people usually will have the flexibility to use different
applications to reach out to different customer bases as these companies
usually do not restrict people from signing up with other applications or
companies. With a gig this also means that people can also start or stop
working whenever they wish. This means that they will be able to take up
as many or as little jobs as they wanted as well as start or end whenever
they wanted as well. Also with tools such as the GPS system drivers can
almost immediately start on the roads to bring people from place to place
without much prior knowledge about the area that they are bringing their
passengers to. (Rogers, B., 2015.)

In 2016, the government had estimated a total of 8,000 to 10,000 drivers

who were on the ride sharing system providing rides on Singapore roads.
And in order to safeguard the passengers who take these ridesharing
services the government has made mandatory health checks as well as
having to attend a vocational license course in order to better regulate the
customers safety. (Feeney, M. and companies Uber, R., 2015.)

Why consumers support the gig platforms

Consumers view the gig platform as a much cheaper way to get what they
want done. In certain circumstances finding a person to freelance for a
design may only cost a small sum versus hiring a designer for a whole
month. The gig platforms allow the consumers to set certain budgets and
be able to decide immediately whether or not the gig is affordable or too
expensive. In some platforms there are even certain gradings involved
and customers will be able to rate whether or not the delivered products
are up to standard or not. Certain platforms like freelancer.com allow
people to take tests in order to prove that they are proficient in certain
subjects so that they will be able to handle the project. Other applications
such as Uber or Grab has a help system in place as well as a grading
system so that their customers can choose to go directly to the platform
to complain and have a person to step in to control or refund the trip and
that the user themselves will be able to grade the customers so that the
customers will know what to expect from the trip. The customer can then
choose to immediately cancel the trip because of the drivers poor rating
or take the chance to journey with the driver and rate him afterwards for
different passengers that may take his vehicle in the future. At the end of
the day consumers are looking to get cheaper alternatives to
transportation and this is very good for countries like Singapore because
in Singapore the cost of vehicles and manpower is considered to be high
and by having ridesharing models as well as gig platforms this will help to
lower the cost of getting things done. (Friedman, G., 2014.)

Why do people want to work for the gig platforms

One of the reasons why consumers support the gig platform is that usually
the entry requirements for the gig is set at a low level. This means that
people from any education level will be able to take up jobs as long as
they know how to use the technology. Also on the platform the employers
do not judge the people who are taking up the gig but they are being
rated by the people who choose to use the services. This provides a fair
ground that is open to anyone who wants to take up gigs in order to earn
more money. A lot of times these platforms are also easier to use. Which
means using the platform and registering for the platform could mean just
tapping buttons on the application. The ease of use is one of the reasons
why the take up rate of the technology is high. (Mill, R., 2011.) On a social
level some people also take up the jobs in order to get to know more
friends and to widen their base of friends some of the applications like
GrabHitch is based on a social riding format which allows people to give
people a ride on their way to work. This concept is much different since
they do not work for Grab or are considered as one of their drivers. The
GrabHitch platform allows for people to get to know each other by sharing
a ride. Another reason why people would want to work for the gig
platforms is that the monetary gratification is considered instantaneous
often with the platform linking up with the persons company credit card.
This means when a payment is made that the drivers will immediately get
the amount transferred into their account. This makes it a more effective
way to ensure that the hours that they put in will get immediate results
and that they will be able to see it instantly. (De Stefano, V., 2015.)

The issues with the gig economy

With the good of the gig economy there is also points that are negative as
well. Because of the lower prices this encourages a price war and the
professionals who were charging based on experience will need to lower
their prices. (Cramer, J. and Krueger, A.B., 2016.) This is true for taxi
drivers as they will need to learn to be proficient in order to drive their
passengers safely from one point to another. With the implementation of
Uber although this is much cheaper and a more affordable way to travel if
everyone chooses to travel by Uber it could mean that the taxi drivers
could be out of job faster. (Rempel, J., 2014.) Also with this unregulated
industry may mean that whoever that chooses to use the gig economy to
run their business may end up losing important information as these
people are not under contract with the company to not release the
information that they have gathered.

Conclusion
Although the gig economy provides jobs for people there is also a
downside and that is that there is a possibility that the safety of the
passengers as well as the information could be risked by having the
person who is doing the gig to take the information and selling it to a third
party. Also people who are not necessarily trained in the job could bluff
their way into selling a cheap service that could not be able to meet the
standards that the professionals could do. The gig economy however does
provide a good start in terms of getting people acquainted with
entrepreneurship by opening them up to opportunities that they may not
had if they had just sat in the office from day to day. (Mill, R., 2011.)

References
Rempel, J., 2014. A Review of Uber, the Growing Alternative to Traditional
Taxi Service.

Rogers, B., 2015. The social costs of Uber. U. Chi. L. Rev. Dialogue, 82,
p.85.

Cramer, J. and Krueger, A.B., 2016. Disruptive change in the taxi business:
The case of Uber. The American Economic Review, 106(5), pp.177-182.

Feeney, M. and companies Uber, R., 2015. Is Ridesharing Safe?. Cato

Policy Analysis, 767, p.2.
Posen, H.A., 2015. Ridesharing in the Sharing Economy: Should Regulators
Impose Uber Regulations on Uber. Iowa L. Rev., 101, p.405.

Friedman, G., 2014. Workers without employers: shadow corporations and

the rise of the gig economy. Review of Keynesian Economics, 2(2), pp.171-
188.

De Stefano, V., 2015. The Rise of the'Just-in-Time Workforce': On-Demand

Work, Crowd Work and Labour Protection in the'Gig-Economy'.

Sundararajan, A., 2015. The gig economy is coming. What will it mean
for work?. The Guardian, 26, p.2015.

Motoyama, M., McCoy, D., Levchenko, K., Savage, S. and Voelker, G.M.,
2011, August. Dirty jobs: The role of freelance labor in web service abuse.
In Proceedings of the 20th USENIX conference on Security (pp. 14-14).
USENIX Association.

Mill, R., 2011. Hiring and learning in online global labor markets.