The four faces of mass customization.

Abstract

Virtually all executives today recognize the need to provide outstanding service to customers. Focusing on the customer, however, is both an imperative and a potential curse. In their desire to become customer driven, many companies have resorted to inventing new programs and procedures to meet every customer's request. But as customers and their needs grow increasingly diverse, such an approach has become a surefire way to add unnecessary cost and complexity to operations. Companies around the world have embraced mass customization in an attempt to avoid those pitfalls. Readily available information technology and flexible work processes permit them to customize goods or services for individual customers in high volumes at low cost. But many managers have discovered that mass customization itself can produce unnecessary cost and complexity. They are realizing that they did not examine thoroughly enough what kind of customization their customers would value before they plunged ahead. That is understandable. Until now, no framework has existed to help managers determine the type of customization they should pursue. James Gilmore and Joseph Pine provide managers with just such a framework. They have identified four distinct approaches to customization. When designing or redesigning a product, process, or business unit, managers should examine each approach for possible insights into how to serve their customers best. In some cases, a single approach will dominate the design. More often, however, managers will need a mix of some or all of the four approaches to serve their own particular set of customers.

今天，幾乎所有的高層認識到客戶需要提供卓越的服務。

然而，聚焦客戶，勢在必行，是一個潛在的詛咒。

在他們的願望，成為客戶驅動，很多企業都使出發明新的方案和程序，以滿足每一位客戶的要求。

但是，客戶和他們的需求日益多樣化，這樣的做法已經成為一個萬無一失的方式來增加不必要的成本和操作的複雜性。

世界各地的公司已經接受了大規模定制，企圖以避免這些陷阱。隨手可用的信息技術和靈活的工作流程，允許他們自定義為個人客戶大批量低成本的商品或服務。

但許多經理們已經發現，大規模定制本身能夠產生不必要的成本和複雜性。

他們都意識到，他們沒有檢查不夠徹底，什麼樣的定制他們的客戶都重視他們提前暴跌之前。這是可以理解的。到現在為止，沒有框架已經存在，以幫助管理者確定類型的定制，他們應該追求的。

詹姆斯·吉爾摩和約瑟夫·派恩為管理者提供這樣一個框架。他們已經確定了四種不同的方法來定制。

在設計或重新設計產品，過程或業務單位，管理者應該檢查每個方法可能的見解如何最好的服務於他們的客戶。在某些情況下，單一的方法將主導設計。

然而，更多的時候，管理者將需要組合的部分或全部的四個方法來為自己的特定的一組客戶。