- Published: November 16, 2021
- Updated: November 16, 2021
- University / College: The University of Adelaide
- Level: College Admission
- Language: English
- Downloads: 43
Supply Chain: Wikipedia Affiliation Wikipedia Wikipedia is an example of a service where the target is an integral part of the supply chain. Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia that contains a variety of information on virtually all topics (BBC, 2012). Wikipedia gets most of the information it has from the target customers. The target customers voluntarily contribute information. Wikipedia allows for editing by the target customers However, it has guidelines that are enforced to ensure that the customers who edit the content upload good information (BBC, 2012). This is done by checking for bias, sourcing, and flagging. In most of the cases the targeted editors who are allowed to put information on to Wikipedia are experts in a particular field and this tends make the content reliable. Any vandalism or incorrect information is immediately removed from the site.
Involving the target customer has enabled Wikipedia to obtain a lot of information on various topics. By involving the targeted users and allowing them to contribute, Wikipedia has been able to obtain over 30 million articles in 280 languages (Thompson, 2005). This has made it to be one of the widely used sources of information. Involving the target customers has also enabled it to get the information free of charge in most cases since the majority of the contributors are volunteers (BBC, 2012).
In order to allow for the involvement of the customers in the supply chain, Wikipedia has relied on technology to facilitate the interaction. The Web 2. 0 Technology has played a major part as it has been used to allow editing of the information by the customers (Anderson, 2007). The other client side technologies that have been used by the site include Ajax, Java script, YUI library, Adobe Flex, and Dojo tool kit.
References
Anderson, P. (2007). What is web 2. 0? Ideas, technologies and implications for education. JISC Technology and Standards Watch. 10 (1), 108-145.
BBC. (2012). What is wikipedia and how does it work? Retrieved on 2st June 2014 from : http://www. bbc. co. uk/newsround/16612794
Thompson, B. (2005). What is with wikipedia? Retrieved on 2st June 2014 from: news. bbc. co. uk/1/hi/technology/4534712. stm