Analyzing Smart Card Innovation: A Business Development Report

This report explores the business idea of developing a smart card that integrates essential personal information, analyzing its benefits and feasibility within the Australian context. It addresses the shortcomings of previous attempts, such as the Opal card failure, and emphasizes the need for technological adaptation. The report highlights the potential benefits of smart cards, including enhanced security, online portals for user guidance, and sustainability through reduced paper usage and streamlined transactions. It proposes a business model focused on secure encryption and online support, while also considering critical success factors like cost, time efficiency, sustainability, and data security. The feasibility analysis discusses potential risks related to data breaches, identity theft, and the high cost of production, ultimately concluding that while the idea holds promise, careful consideration of these factors is essential for successful implementation. Desklib provides students access to similar solved assignments.

INNOVATION AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Introduction
Technological advancement in the time of a globalized world, has led to the rise of specific
business models that particularly help in enhancing value, efficiency and returns, from a
business perspective (Intriligator, 2017). In order to develop a business idea, it is important to
look into its minor details—like what kind of business will it be, what are the main
objectives, who are the stakeholders, etc., so that elements of an appropriate business model
can be applied to earn best results. In this research, the business idea of developing a smart
card that would incorporate all the essential personal information and data, would be
described and analyzed in order to critically investigate its benefits and feasibility.
Launching this smart card would be a huge step towards a more technologically adapted
Australia, as this card would have access to multiple other documents like the driving license,
transport card, bank credit/debit card, Rego and other necessary identification cards that is
useful in day-to-day lives. It would mean lesser documents to carry, resulting in lesser
chances of losing them. Having access to all the necessary data with the help of just one card
seems to be a sustainable business idea that would reap benefits not only for the managers but
also for their users.
Background of Problem
Australia government’s newest revolutionary attempt at providing smart cards for transport
services in specific cities failed miserably due to multiple technical faults and reflects poor
application of research and knowledge (CPSA, 2015). However, for the first time, it marks
the need or urgency to adapt to the new technological advancements and reap benefits at
large in the day-to-day life. After the massive rejection of Opal cards by the commuters in
Sydney and Melbourne, the real issues behind the application of the business idea became
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more prominent (Hensher, 2017). Amongst some of the most common issues were, shaky
technology, overpriced, selectively applicable, lack of supply, over-consumption of time, etc.
However, one of the best factors about smart cards is that though they contain vital personal
information, they are contactless and the data is embedded in a micro chip that makes it
available to other readers while saving the terminals from being directly networked (Garrett
& Regen, 2017).
Use of smart cards have become increasingly popular because of the ease and flow that they
bring into daily human activities like bank transactions, transport, shopping and many more.
Today’s busy life requires the use of various kinds of transactions that demand identification
and other proofs; therefore, carrying all the documents with oneself, whenever one is leaving
the house, is both necessary and problematic. There is always a risk of losing the original
documents, or even getting them stolen. Revival of a lost identification document leads to
hefty and time-consuming procedures. Not only that, it exposes the owner to various
unidentified risks. According to (Skopik, Settanni & Fiedler, 2016), the increasing issues
regarding cyber-crime and security breaches make us more aware regarding the problems of
carrying important documents on the go.
Benefits
The idea is to bring together all the necessary and important documents that are required on
an everyday basis, to one place so that one can have access to all the documents with the help
of just one card. Instead of having to carry multiple paper documents, one pocket-size plastic
card would give you access to all the information that is required to produce. The three most
essential benefits of having a smart card that has access to all the important documents,
including identification proof, driver’s license, bank debit/credit cards and more, are briefly
described below:
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1. Security: Ability to provide a securely encrypted storage is one of the most valuable
benefits of smart cards. Though they hold a substantial amount of private data and
information, the data cannot be retrieved or read by anyone without the user’s
permission, secured by a private and unique code or PIN (Kumari et al., 2017).
2. Online portals: The smart cards are individually connected to each individual’s online
portal, which they can access from anywhere, at any time, with basic internet on a
phone/ tablet/ computer. These online portals would provide adequate guidance and
information to the users, regarding their latest activities, transactions,
recommendations and further insights.
3. Sustainable: One of the long-term benefits of using smart cards would be conservation
of time and resources. As the use of smart cards make transactions relatively easier by
connecting most of the relevant data at one go, it will save a considerable amount of
time in various sectors like, transportation, travelling, shopping, identification and
many more (Beck et al., 2016). With reduced use of paper documents and most
transactions online, it would also conserve a sustainable amount of energy and
resources.
Proposed Business Model
The proposed business idea is to implement the technological advancements of the country
into the day-to-day transactions, so as to simplify the transaction methods and also make
them more secure. This smart card would contain valuable personal data and information,
linked to the original documents and supported by an online portal system. The motive is to
allow easy access to important documents without having to carry original hard-copies
physically. With a secure encryption method, the data can only be partially retrieved or read,
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with the owner’s permission (Choi et al., 2014). This would solve the need to carry multiple
original documents at all times and also save them from the risk of being lost or stolen.
The system would also have a provision for online guidance. Each subscriber would have
access to their respective online portals, where the histories of their transactions would be
documented for further use. The digital presence would help the users to keep a track of their
proceedings and would be notified if any other person uses their card illegally. The 24/7
customer service would be available online to resolve any and all queries that the subscribers
have (Alliance, 2015). The online portal would not only provide relevant insights on the use
of the card, but also would recommend on how to make it more sustainable and conserve
energy.
Critical Success Factors
Though the business idea seems to have adequate relevance and stands a high chance of
success in today’s business world, it is important to investigate in detail the various factors
that play a leading role in assuring the success of the implementation of the model (Yeoh &
Popovič, 2016). For example, the recent launch of Opal cards have resulted in a huge failure
as most of their subscribers find it irrelevant or difficult to use. Therefore, it is necessary to
look into the practical scenario in order to draw a critical analysis of the success of the
business plan.
 Cost: One of the leading problems of smart cards is that they are expensive and
cannot be afforded by all (Hollands, 2015). In order to make this business plan work,
it is vital to produce it in the most cost-effective way, so that they remain inexpensive
and affordable for the majority of the people.
 Time: With increasing busyness in our daily schedule, it has become absolutely
essential to make sure that the technology is up-to-date and doesn’t come with any
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glitch (Kitchin, 2014). Dodgy technology leads to unwanted glitches that take up a lot
of time and defeats the main motive of the innovation.
 Sustainability: Another major factor that is responsible for its long-term success is its
sustainability (Ho, Wang & Yen, 2015). In order to make the business survive in the
long-run, it is important to make sure that they adopt sustainability measures, like
awareness regarding conservation of natural resources, controlled consumption data,
reduced paper usage and encouragement towards a sustainable lifestyle.
 Security: The most important factor in this particular business model is having a
strong and secure encryption of data and information. With increasing rates of cyber
crimes and security breaches today, this smart card has to be extremely careful
regarding their security procedures as it would contain extremely volatile and private
information of individuals (Nedjah et al., 2017).
(Source: Bhaskar & Chung, 2015)
In order to make this innovation a success in today’s business world, it would be ideal to
analyze the previous similar attempts as they would expose the loopholes in the system. The
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feedback of the Opal cards indicates towards the exact requirements of the users and their
particular issues with the available services.
Feasibility of the Idea
Last but not the least, it is important to discuss the feasibility of the idea, with reference to
current Australian context. Especially after the failure of newly launched Opal cards, it has
become of prime importance to critically analyze the practicality of the project (Vidyattama
& Nakanishi, 2016, November).
As this particular smart card is being produced to replace all other exclusive documents, it is
natural that the card would have to have a complex structure of functioning. Since the smart
card would be connected to an individual’s other personal accounts, for example the bank
account, it would add to the individual’s virtual purse; however, it would also remain exposed
to the threat of being exposed to undesirable forces. With the help of card number it would be
possible for hackers to find out major details about a person, for example where she works,
which bank she uses, where she goes for shopping and more.
On the other hand, tracking the use of these smart cards would help many individuals or
organizations to create separate individual-profiles, keeping a track on their daily activities
and using that information for further manipulation or blackmail (Hanis, Hyre & Smith,
2017).
Another major feasibility would be that these smart cards do not have the name of the owner
or their signature. Therefore, it can become ambiguous as to who is using the card, leading to
further complications (Lee, Verma & Roth, 2015). In case of a stolen card and security PIN,
it would be almost impossible to recognize the theft or the thief.
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(Source: Funcion, 2017)
Lastly, the making of smart cards requires precise technological perfection—embedded
circuits, glitch-free magnetic fields, substantial memory and a secure data encryption system,
thus making it too expensive for most people. Therefore, efforts have to be made to bring
down the cost of production in an innovative way, so that they can be afforded by the
majority of the people.
Conclusion
To conclude, this particular business idea aims to bring about a technological revolution by
applying the relevant technological advancements to produce a device that would prove to be
extremely helpful for the people in their regular lives. This research proposes a business
model to produce exclusive smart cards that would have access to all the valuable documents
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and personal data that are required for everyday transactions. These smart cards would be
completely safe and secured by strong encryption, so that no one can read or retrieve their
information without the permission of the owner. However, they also expose the owners to
potential threat of security breach.
In order to assure the maximum success of this innovative design, it is important to
investigate all the previous attempts at such similar applications and critically analyze their
loopholes in the system.
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