Potential Costs and Risks of Using Crowds

• Source: Getting results from the crowd. Ross Dawson. 2011. (from page 16)

While there are potentially many benefits of tapping crowds in business, recognize that there re potential costs compared with other approaches, as well as risks. Below is a list of the primary potential costs and risks you should be aware of in using crowds in your business.

Costs
Learning	Building capabilities in using crowdsourcing effectively requires time and effort.
Quality assurance	Sometimes additional resources need to be allocated to checking quality of external work.
Process implementation	More sophisticated approaches where crowdsourcing platforms and approaches are integrated into existing internal business processes require work and possibly technology development.
Risks
Reduced quality	There is the potential that internal or client-facing work and projects will not meet existing standards.
Project overruns	It is easier for projects to overrun in costs or time if there is less control over the resources on the project.
Loss of intellectual property	There may be greater exposure of intellectual property to theft or loss.
Reduced staff motivation	If the adoption of crowdsourcing is mismanaged then employees could feel their contributions are not valued.
Loss of capabilities	If inappropriate functions are passed over to crowd work then core competences of the organization could erode over time.