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Whenever customers are not getting what they need, business opportunities are opened. When properly implemented, mass customization has the potential to provide a long lasting competitive advantage through better, more adapted products and services that can be sold at premium prices. This final article in the Customization500 series sums up the conclusions and key learnings.

While compiling data for the Customization500 study over a period of 12 months, the researchers noticed that roughly 20% of the companies went out of business during this time. In part 7 of this series, we take a closer look at the reasons why both startups and established companies fail at implementing mass customization and in what areas managers can expect the strongest resistance.

The customer’s experience and a feeling of achievement during the co-design process is vital to the success of a custom product. In part 3 of the Mass Customization Series, Dominik Walcher & Frank Piller explain why managers should look beyond the sheer technology and back office integration of configuration toolkits and also focus on delivering a great configuration experience.

When providing a customizable product how can a firm minimize the burden of choice and maximize the customer joy resulting from the co-creation process? In part five in this series on mass customization Professor Frank Piller explains how to turn choice complexity into customer experience and loyalty.

Offering customized products is a strain on a company’s resources. What are the different ways that you can minimize the deterioration in the firm’s operations and supply chain? In part four in this series on mass customization, Frank Piller and Fabrizio Salvador explain the robust process design – whereby the firm reuses or re-combines existing organizational and value chain resources to fulfill differentiated customers’ needs.

A company seeking to adopt mass customization must first understand what the idiosyncratic needs of its customers are. After this crucial step, the company may establish what it is going to offer and what it is not. In part three in this series on mass customization, Frank Piller and Fabrizio Salvador walk through some of the potential methods of solution space development.

As NetNatives become consumers and buyers are “trained” by personalized offerings, the market is finally ripe for mass customization. In part two of this special series focusing on mass customization, Professors Frank Piller and Dominik Walcher take a closer look at what the current market has to offer and provide their conclusions after observing 500 leaders in the field from a customer perspective.

The concept of “the customer is always right” is taking on a whole new meaning as the the ability to manage personalized products is starting to determine whether your company can keep up with the competition. In part one of this series, Frank Piller, a leading expert on mass customization, personalization and open innovation, discusses the goals, scope and core capabilities of mass customization.

The idea that consumers can customize their own products on a massive scale is having a tremendous impact on customer experience and expectations as well as the way organizations approach R&D. Following an extensive study of mass customization in the domain of consumer goods, this upcoming series of articles provides an overview on mass customization, its strategic capabilities, and the success factors that drive its implementation in business.