Mass Customization Demands
In my grandfather's day, Henry Ford promised you can have any color of Model T you want as long as it was black. Customization was non-existent. Forty years later my dad could scarcely believe that he only had to wait four weeks for his "specially" built 1968 Buick Electra 225. Today, my daughter can waltz into the Apple store where they have devices in a multitude of colors and, oh yes, she also can have her name imprinted on the device she buys. We are on the cusp of some manufacturers being able to predict each customers individual preferences before they come to shop, whether online or in a bricks-and-mortar store. For post-modern shoppers, it is all about us. We want unique products that express our personality. The manufacturers who thoroughly know their customers and have the data and advanced analytics to gain insight from that data in a timely way will win the day. There are 7 billion people on the planet. More than 2 billion of those people -- and the figure grows daily -- express their preferences through social media channels. Those expressed preferences represent a data goldmine that can lead to mass-produced yet customized products. Mass customization might sound like an oxymoron, but whoever figures out how to anticipate the individual consumers preferences and build it before they come, will own the market.
