Mass Customization Based E-business Strategies

While the competitive advantage of mass customization has been widely substantiated in management theory, a deficit exists in the empirical examination and the implementation of mass customization in e-business strategies. Founded on an exploratory study of more than 100 international mass customizers we deploy a systematization to demonstrate how modern Internet technologies and possibilities of e-business work as success factors for mass customization. Thus, four fields can be derived based on the degree of interaction between customer and manufacturer required and the digitizability of the products and services to be customized. The business models developed here work as starting points to create new value added for innovative e-businesses. However, our suggestions for action must not be understand as generic strategic patterns but rather as ideas where a successful mass customization based e-business concept can start.