Facing extensive domestic and foreign competition, companies are looking for a long term business strategy to maintain persistent profitability. Mass customization, or massively producing customized goods and services, is indicated to be one of the potential new business strategies (Dertouzos et al., 1989; Standard & Poor, 1994; Russell, 1993; Kelley, 1993; Rice, 1992; Harding, 1995).rnSome companies tried mass customization strategy and did extremely well, while other attempts seemed problematic (Pine, 1993; Kotler and Armstrong, 1994). For instance, companies retaining stock of every variety in order to satisfy customer orders may find inventory cost out of control. Turnaround time can be too lengthy to lose sales and cause customer dissatisfaction. Providing too many unimportant options only confuses customers and does not result in serious sales boost. In short, customization itself is not difficu the true challenge is to provide the right personalized customization, timeliness, quality, and mass-production price, all at once.
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