via Mass Customisation & Open Innovation News

If succesful innovation is determined by more completely meeting the needs of your users, customisation for a single consumer must be highly successful innovation. B. Joseph Pine II believes the Internet has made it possible for every company to provide customised products and services.

Any company in the world can reach any potential customer in the world with a digitized representation of what it has to offer, and can change that representation – and then the actual offering – to meet the needs of that individual customer.

How quickly will desktop fabrication and FabLabs become a reality, allowing individuals to produce small quantities of unique items. (Look at how blogging has democratised publishing.) Even without adopting mass customisation, I found Chris Hart’s concept of “customer sacrifice” applicable to anyone uncovering the needs of users.

Customer sacrifice is the gap between what a customer wants exactly and what he has to settle for today. As opposed to customer satisfaction, which relates to expectations, customer sacrifice looks at what each customer really and truly wants and needs. Companies need to uncover the few dimensions, or even just the one, solitary dimension of sacrifice that will yield the most value for their customers, and for them.

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