#MassCustomization is the new normal
Experts contend that done properly, mass customization has the potential to complete replace mass production as the primary means of satisfying customers
#Masscustomization is a well-known, albeit not very old dictum in the Indian market. The dictionary defines it as “the ability to produce goods and services to meet individual customers' needs with near mass production efficiency.”
In the B2C space, multinationals like Amazon and Walmart claim to have been catering to their niche audience with the tool of mass customization and driving higher ROI. The service is now doing the same.
The most popular mode of offering mass customization is to devise a standard module for a service and then offer buyers a feature options they can add or subtract from the main module. The other name for this model is Freemium model that is extremely popular with software users. Undoubtedly, Freemium makes a software service more user specific and cost effective. The benefits for the service provider are obvious – greater customer satisfaction, higher client retention and goodwill for the company.
The IT industry in any case works with personal and basic software. Personal software is developed only for a selected number of users and is therefore accurately crafted for their needs.
In comparison, basic software caters to the widespread demands of a huge market of end users. Developed once, it can be used any number of times by any number of users. The result is huge savings for both the software developer and the user community.
The other names for personal and basic software are – custom or bespoke software. Custom software development is undoubtedly expensive compared to off-the-shelf solutions, so the next best option for small and medium scale businesses is #mass customized software solutions, wherein a few basic features are common and the rest can be tweaked to an individual user company’s requirements. In this process, standard software gets a customer-specific user interface, and some functional components as per the customer’s workflows.
To drive home the point, let’s take the example of a film production house with staff strength of 3000+. Some are on the company payroll and the rest are contractual employees. Most are artists and technicians, who do not have regular and similar timings. Adding to the confusion of the company’s HR department, these contractual employees so not have the same pay pattern or follow the same pay regulations, either.
In this kind of a scenario, what a company like EasyHR can do is use basic Payroll Management software and tweak some or most – as per client demands – of its features to make it custom software for this production house’s specific Payroll Management needs.
#Masscustomization is gaining its momentum in the B2B market, and not without reason. A Deloitte research estimates that over half of the consumer industry now demands customized products or services.
In other words, today, every customer is his own market. You can satisfy him only through #mass customization.
