Table of Contents

Introduction................................................................................................................................3

Idea Generation Techniques – TP040971 CHUA MING LIANG.............................................4

Competitor Analysis – TP040971 CHUA MING LIANG........................................................5

Objective Statement...................................................................................................................5

Product Concept Description – TP040971 CHUA MING LIANG...........................................6

Market Identification – TP040971 CHUA MING LIANG........................................................8

Marketing Survey...................................................................................................................9

Result of survey......................................................................................................................9

Idea Evaluation – TP040971 CHUA MING LIANG..............................................................10

Force Field Analysis............................................................................................................10

SWOT analysis.....................................................................................................................11

Conclusion................................................................................................................................11

References................................................................................................................................12
Introduction
There are lacking affordable accommodation or room for renting. In Malaysia, many
minimum wage worker or poor people have difficulty to rent a room for living. Even they
could find one, the options are very limited and might not suitable for them. For example,
location of the accommodation room might be very far away from their work place, so they
might need travel around very far away when they are going to work. To solve this problem a
system is proposed. The proposed system is a web-based system and it serves as a platform
for individual or tenant to find an accommodation. This can make the searching room for
renting process be easier while providing more options to choose and increase the chance of
finding suitable room location or price. Besides that, the renter can also skip the time-
consuming process of finding a middle man to search a room for them and thus reducing cost.
This also apply to the room owner or the landlord as well. The landlord might have extra
room that can to rent to others, without needing to find a middle man as well they can put the
room information and their contact to the online system so others can see it. As a result, there
will be very flexible and more options for individual to find a suitable room or
accommodation.
Idea Generation Techniques – TP040971 CHUA MING LIANG

Figure 1 (Mind map)

Figure 2 (Fishbone)
Competitor Analysis – TP040971 CHUA MING LIANG
Trivago SpeedHome
Background It is an online website let It is an online system that
people to search, find and allows tenant to rent a room
compare hotels. or landlords to advertise
their room in Malaysia.
Uniqueness Allow user to select Tenants can rent with no
expected date and location deposit. It has insurance
to find better result. It works provided to landlords.
with Expedia, a travel
metasearch engine to
improve services.
Limitation Only able to find for hotel It does not provide the list of
not accommodation or room choices for room renting.
renting. Tenant has to search a room
via the system.
Technology Online web system and Online web system.
database technology. Database technology
Citation (Trivago, 2019) (SpeedHome, 2019)

Objective Statement
To provide more options and flexibility for more room renting or accommodation for solving
lack of accommodations or rooms for renting issue.
Product Concept Description – TP040971 CHUA MING LIANG
The product will be a software system, more specifically it is a web-based system. The tenant
can go to the web system and register as a member first. Then the tenant can login to find and
search for the desire accommodation or rooms to rent. Once the tenant found one, then they
can contact or request the landlord or the owner for inquiry. On the other hand, the landlord
or owner the room can register to the system as landlord. Then they can upload their rooms
information and advertise the room for renting so others can search and see it. This allows
more possible rooms for tenant to choose for because if a landlord were less demand to earn
more from the renting and with spare rooms, it could benefit anyone who is looking for room
to rent.

Figure 3 (Use Case Diagram)

The use case diagram shows the basic core functions and features the system allows user to
do. Tenant is anyone who want to rent a room can search rooms and contact the room owner.
In addition, the system allows room owner or the landlord to upload or share his or her rooms
for others to see and rent it. The system will have database to store the list of available rooms.
Then if a tenant search for a room, the system will go through all the rooms and find the best
matches to offer them.
 Figure 4 ( System process)

The system will give the best matches by user or the tenant’s information such as the
location, desire pricing or size of the room. First the user or the tenant connection to the
Internet with his or her smartphone device or computer, then go to the link to the website to
access the system. Once reach the system, a request of room search can be sent to the system.
The system then goes to the server database and search for best possible rooms that suit the
user base on the information provide, then the list of rooms will be return as the possible
options. The limitation is user has to be able to access to the Internet, but as today Internet
accessing is being more available today, the limitation might not be a big issue.
 Figure 5 (Storyboard)

The picture above shows the example of the graphical user interface (GUI) or the look of the
web system. It will have some options for tenant to search then a list of possible rooms will
be shown and listed below.

Market Identification – TP040971 CHUA MING LIANG

The price of using the web system is free provided that the user has a smartphone device or a
computer with Internet access. However, for the room renting is depending on the landlord or
the room owners on what price is set. The system is using existing technology like database
system and web technology to provide the services.

To push the system for more user to use it the promotion technique will be advertising and
friend recommendation. The web system can be visited by entering the website address so the
link to the website can be easily share among user’s friends or being advertise on the other
website.

Market identified Justification

Price & Revenue Is free to use. But renting a room will be
 depended on the room owner or landlord.
The system will take a cut or small charge
for the process of making a deal.
Product It is a software web system. No software
installing is required. But user need to have
access to computer device and Internet.
The system can be built and maintained by
several software developers. Any additional
features then can be added with incremental
software update.
Place The system can be used at anywhere and
anytime since the online system can run 24
by 7 a year if there were no down time or
maintenance taking place.
System will run on a server. But for
simplicity, the server can be hosted on cloud
providing by third party so there will be no
hardware spending. Cloud service like the
Amazon Cloud has the option to host a
virtual machine for website hosting
(Amazon, 2019).
Promotion The system will be promoted by friend
recommendation such as telling user to
share to others with some small benefits
given.
Advertise can be used as well, to advertise
on other social website where many people
can easily see and access or share to others
who might need it.

Marketing Survey
The survey is to identify the strength and weakness of the proposed system. Others can give
the opinion and point out the issue of the system so that it can be solved and improved. The
survey will be questionnaire with 5 points Likert scale with some open-ended questions.
Location of the is at the Asia Pacific University while the participants are the students. It is
random sampling with sample size of 10. However, the target participants will be student
who study in Information Technology (IT) related fields to relate the survey topic as closely
as possible. The results are then be analyzed for improving the idea of the proposed system.
(The hardcopy of the survey forms can be found on the appendix).

Result of survey
Survey Questions Average Score (1 –
5) Higher is better
1. Are you clear with the idea proposed by the student? 4.5
 2. Is the description of the target market specific or general? 4.4

3. Has the student explained the value that will be provided by his 4.4
or her idea to the target customer(s) or user(s) clearly?

4. How far do you agree that the value provided by the proposed 4.2
idea is relevant to the target market/user?

5. How innovative is the proposed idea? 3.7

6. How unique is the proposed idea when compared to the 3.6

identified competing alternatives?

7. How far is the proposed idea considered to offer superior value 3.7
when compared to the identified competing alternatives?

The table above shows the average score of the first 7 questions. Generally, the idea of the
system is being good based on the result. There are very few respondents have given low
score on the question 5 and 6 where the respondents said there are existing similar system.
However, majority of respondents agreed that the idea is innovative. This might because the
existing similar system is not very popular, and lack of people know about it. Thus, this is an
opportunity for the proposed idea to be innovative and extend or improve the solution. For
the result of open-ended questions 8 to 13 will be discussed and evaluated on the next chapter
Idea Evaluation.

Idea Evaluation – TP040971 CHUA MING LIANG

There are many feedbacks from the survey including suggestion, system weakness, and
improvements. A few feedbacks have pointed out that there might be security issue with
room renting such as the area is not safe, having to share room with strangers or lack of house
security. Besides that, many feedbacks have pointed out that the system can be improved by
advertise it or cooperate with other related company that can benefits the system.

Force Field Analysis

Forces for changes
5 Improve security
3 Provide basic needs or
items
3 Allows everyone to use
without registering as
member
Forces against changes
3 Less restricting
The room renting web 4 Reduce cost
system
4 Improve suggestions base
+ More secure on registered member
+ Available information and avoid
 member abuses the system
3 Competition 4 Conversion cost
5 Increase profit 5 Assist property group
Total = 19 Total = 20

The table above shows the force field analysis. The result is to not change the idea about the
system. However, there are some important aspects that some feedbacks have pointed out is
the security issue. The security such as housing area safety, previous records or behavior of
tenant, and the room safety measurement must be reconsidered and improved.

SWOT analysis
Strengths Weakness
 Provide more flexibility and options  Require a smartphone or computer
 Improve renting process and to access the system
efficiency  Require Internet connection
 Provide conveniences  Difficult to profit from the system

Opportunities Threats
 Possible to solve or reduce homeless  Rooms or accommodation area
issue might not be safe
 Can cooperate with related company  People can abuse the system
like insurance company.
 Wide spread on the Internet about
the system
 Lack of popular similar system

The SWOT analysis shows that the threats such as people can abuse the system and some
weaknesses. However, the strength and together with the opportunities of the system
outweigh the weaknesses and threats. The is some possibility the idea about the system can
be fully utilized and reach its potentials.

Conclusion
There are some room renting or accommodation issue in Malaysia such as difficulty to find a
room for affordable price and suitable location. New ideas to solve the issues are necessary.
As a result, a new system has been proposed to serve as a platform for room searching or
renting. The system is not a totally new idea with cutting-edge or game-changing technology,
instead the system is a combination of few existing technologies such as web system, server
infrastructure, and database. However, it can bring some values to the system and assist
tenant to solve the difficulty on searching an accommodation issue. Meanwhile, the system
also provides additional feature to landlords or room owners to advertise their rooms for
renting to provide more possible options to tenant. The ideas might not be perfect, and system
has some limitation, but it has the potential to do more than overcoming the room renting
issues.

References
Amazon, 2019. Amazon CloudFront. [Online]
Available at: https://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/
[Accessed 9 May 2019].

SpeedHome, 2019. SpeedHome Company Info. [Online]

Available at: https://speedhome.com/more/about/company
[Accessed 7 May 2019].

Trivago, 2019. Trivago story. [Online]

Available at: https://company.trivago.com/
[Accessed 7 May 2019].
Appendix