Ontology-engineered MSME Framework

M. Saravanan

, M. Amirtha Varshini

and Brindha S.

Ericsson India Private Ltd, Chennai, India

Department of Information Technology, Meenakshi Sundararajan Engineering College, Chennai, India

Keywords: Micro Small and Medium Scale Enterprises, Middlemen, Ontology Engineered Framework, JSON,

Android, Cloud Environment.

Abstract: Micro, Small and Medium scale Enterprises (MSMEs) hold an unfailing distinction of being pillars of

equitable economic growth. Lack of proper business platforms and knowledge of marketing strategies

render MSMEs vulnerable to middlemen exploitation. The Web has extended e-business platforms, e-

commerce and micro financing solutions to assist MSMEs. These web-based solutions fail to obliterate

intermediation. In view of the advancements and customers’ growth in the telecommunications field, we

utilize the mobile platform to offer trading solutions to MSMEs. In this paper, we propose a mobile phone-

based ontology engineered framework for MSMEs that can achieve disintermediation. The framework has

been tested on mobile cloud akin to EC2 cloud environment and integrated with an android application that

provides easy access - anytime, anywhere. The envisioned framework will boost MSME margins, build

healthy business-ties and transform MSMEs into self-sufficient establishments equipped with full-fledged

trading systems that operate in mobile phone enabled environment.

1 INTRODUCTION

Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises

(MSMEs) hold a trustful distinction of being pillars

of equitable economic growth and account for 90%

of global businesses (Abor and Quartey, 2010).

Middlemen - wholesalers, distributors, agents and

brokers, perform essential trading tasks for MSMEs.

Middlemen primarily focus on identifying

interdependencies in the market, in terms of

'exchange opportunities' between MSMEs (Gadde

and Snehota, 2001). Middlemen tend to misuse their

market knowledge to exploit MSMEs and reap

excessive profits. MSMEs often lay claim of

middlemen pocketing their margins besides

indulging in unfair trading practices like adulteration

and hoarding (Himachalam, 1991). Significant

development in the fields of Information

Technology and World Wide Web has aided in

providing Internet-based solutions for MSMEs but,

fail to obliterate intermediation. However, small

business owners are unable to comprehend and use

PC-based Internet solutions due to limited

knowledge of technologies (Cooke, 2000). This calls

for a standard framework that can extend 24 × 7

support to MSMEs through mobile phones.

Remarkable advancements in the telecommunication

field and mobile phones in particular, have provided

viable alternatives to web solutions. The paper aims

at utilizing the mobile platform to offer trading

solutions for MSMEs. We propose to build an

ontology-engineered framework for mobile

networks environment that can effectively replace

middlemen. The overall system architecture is

shown in Fig 1. Considering the explosive volume of

data to be stored and processed, the proposed system

runs on mobile cloud environment for high

scalability. A user friendly Android application is

integrated to assure quick, easy and round-the-clock

access to the middlemen replacement components on

cloud. Ontology is defined as a “formal, explicit

specification of conceptualization” (Gruber, 1995).

Ontology represents knowledge of a domain in a

declarative language, by defining a set of

representational terms. Ontology can be represented

as a hierarchical structure of domain knowledge by

subcategorizing entities observed to be existent in

the domain. This paper focuses on such an ontology

built for MSME domain. The framework supports

the process of generating and storing JSON (Java

Script Object Notation) for representing ontology.

JSON is also used as an electronic data exchange

format for communication between client and server.

241

Saravanan M., Amirtha Varshini M. and S. B..

Ontology-engineered MSME Framework.

DOI: 10.5220/0004050402410244

In Proceedings of the International Conference on Data Technologies and Applications (DATA-2012), pages 241-244

ISBN: 978-989-8565-18-1

 2012 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

Figure 1: Overall System Architecture.

An ensemble of the MSME domain ontology, JSON

Library, mobile cloud and android application end

point constitute the Ontology engineered MSME

framework.

2 RELATED WORK

The recent past has witnessed development of a

multitude of applications and services to assist

MSMEs. Popular web applications provide CRM

systems (Achuama and Usoro, 2010) and human

resources management (Andersen, 2003) solutions.

Most of the web solutions aim at providing a

business platform for the small-scale firms to sell

their produces in the online market. E-commerce

applications have been developed to cover business

transactions (Olatokun and Kebonye, 2010). But in

reality, MSMEs turn to another class of middlemen

to carry out their online trading (Cooke, 2000).

Consequently, MSMEs end-up paying two different

classes of middlemen.

A significant related development in the

telecommunications field, pertaining to ontology is

the Ontological Framework for Mobile Health

Services (Saravanan et al, 2010). In the framework,

health ontology was used to provide location-based

assistance in case of medical emergencies.

Mobile cloud, considered as the next-generation

technology, is extensively used to provide services

to mobile phone networks (Stuart et al., 2011). The

Amazon EC2 is one of the recent developments in

the field of cloud computing that offers many cloud

related solutions as web services (Varia, 2010). This

paper describes a highly scalable system developed

for MSMEs using the ontology-engineered

framework that uses cloud for data storage and

processing. The android application has remote

access to framework components that run on cloud,

for effective and efficient processing.

3 PROPOSED FRAMEWORK

The proposed framework as shown in Fig 2 is

explained through following components.

DATA2012-InternationalConferenceonDataTechnologiesandApplications

242

Figure 2: Component diagram.

3.1.1 Intelligent Search Engine

The search engine retrieves relevant search result for

products searched by MSMEs within the system.

Any query given to the system is first built to a

format understandable by the engine. The Search

History Analyser suggests the products an MSME

meant by a given query by analysing search history.

Context of query is identified by considering

purchase history and the nature of MSME business.

Moreover, spellcheck algorithm provides 80-90%

tolerance to spelling mistakes. The search engine

provides location based search results.

3.1.2 Order Placement and Processing

The system calculates the optimal order quantity and

the minimal buffer quantity of raw materials using

the EOQ (Economic Order Quantity) model. When

the inventory nears the minimal buffer quantity, the

system suggests the reorder quantity from statistical

analysis of purchase history. MSMEs can parallelize

order for readily available products and use custom-

specific negotiator for custom-made products.

3.1.3 Logistics and Delivery

Logistics and delivery component derive the most

suitable logistics service provider for a given order.

The most suitable logistics service is identified by

considering purchase history, time-to-deliver,

distance between and cost estimation.

3.1.4 Advertisements

Product promotion is automated by the

Advertisements component. Product based

interdependencies are identified from the MSME

ontology. Advertisements of products required by

MSMEs are automatically multicast to the mobile

phones of prospective buyers.

3.1.5 Market Educator

The component aims at imparting market knowledge

to MSMEs by creating and managing an MSME

knowledgebase. Input for the knowledgebase is

derived from domain experts to assist MSMEs with

quick lookup of solutions to problems they face in

trading.

3.1.6 Business Facilitator

The component identifies product based similarities

between MSMEs and groups them together.

Similarities are identified by querying MSME

domain ontology. Besides, the component provides

platform for MSMEs within a group to involve in

Ontology-engineeredMSMEFramework

243

collaborative investments and purchases.

4 OTHER RELATED

COMPONENTS

4.1 Mobile Cloud

The framework executes on a mobile cloud for

efficient information processing and storage. The

architecture of the mobile cloud environment is very

similar to that of EC2 cloud (Varia, 2010). The

mobile cloud extends various services to the mobile

phone registered with the system. The cloud spawns

a new virtual machine containing an instance of the

framework for every new session.

4.2 Android Application

The android application acts as an entry point to the

mobile cloud which hosts the framework. Using the

android application, MSMEs can Search for

products, Take advice on optimal order quantity,

Distribute order quantity to purchase from a

combination of different MSMEs, Customize order

specifications to suit the ever-changing needs, Hold

negotiations and transactions directly with the

concerned MSMEs, Track products and obtain

delivery updates as simple text messages, Promote

products to prospective buyers.

5 DISCUSSION

The Ontology-engineered framework makes all

aspects of intermediation available to MSMEs,

without middlemen's intervention. Every factor that

makes MSMEs dependent on middlemen has been

analysed and provided with a viable alternative. It is

evident from the information outlined in the paper

that the framework, together with mobile cloud and

android application end point, play a vital role in

eliminating the need for middlemen.

6 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE

WORK

The framework discussed in the paper possesses the

potential to introduce a revolutionary breakthrough

in the MSME market structure. In order to further

ease out the comprehensibility and usage of the

android application, we plan to integrate a regional

language translator with the MSME framework.

We plan to build a domain-independent,

generalized framework as an extension of the

MSME framework. The generalized framework can

be easily extended and integrated with applications

pertaining to any domain like Finance, Healthcare,

Education, etc. The generalized framework

introduces a new medium to build domain-specific

ontologies. It is to be bundled with an easy-to-use

interface that will enable developers to integrate

domain ontologies with applications pertaining to

their domain of interest.

REFERENCES

Abigail, T., Cooke, 2000. New Role for the Middlemen.

Inet2000 Proceedings on E-Commerce and E-

Business.

Gruber, T., 1995. Towards principles for the design of

Ontologies used for knowledge sharing,International

Journal of humanities and Computer studies, Volume

43, p. 907-928.

Himachalam, D., 1991. Management of Consumer Co-

Operatives, K.M. Rai Mittal for Mittal publications,

India, 1

edition.

JineshVaria, 2010. Architecting for Cloud: Best Practices,

Amazon, Inc., Tech. Rep., Jan. 2010.

Lars-Erik Gadde, Ivan Snehota, 2001. Rethinking the role

of Middlemen, IMP conference 2001, BI, Oslo, 9-11

September.

ParijatUpadhyay, Pranab K. Dan, 2009. ERP in Indian

SME’s : A Post Implementation Study of the

Underlying Critical Success Factors, International

Journal of Management Innovation System.

Pius M.Achuama, Abel Usoro, 2010. Dancing with the

Stars: E-CRM and SMEs in Developing Countries,

Journal of Economic Development, Management, IT,

Finance and Marketing.

Saravanan, M., Prasad, G., Yeshwanth, K. S., and

Venkatesh, B., 2010. Development of Ontological

Framework for Mobile Health Services, Workshop on

Data Mining for Healthcare Management held in

conjunction with the 14

Pacific-Asia Conference on

Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining.

Stuart Taylor, Andy Young, Neeraj Kumar, James

Macaulay, 2011. Taking Care of Business in the

Mobile Cloud. CiscoIbsg Research Uncovers New

Opportunities for SPS to Prosper in the Mobile Cloud

Market.

Torben Andersen, 2003. HRM in SME’s – first findings

onstructure and practices, Proceedings of LOK-

conference at Kongebrogården, Middelfart.

Wole Michael Olatokun, Mohotetsi Kebonye, 2010. e-

Commerce Technology Adoption by SMEs in

Botswana, International Journal of Emerging

Technologies and Society.

DATA2012-InternationalConferenceonDataTechnologiesandApplications

244