Just recently I bought my first ever iPod touch. Its a brilliant device and amply illustrates why Apple is justifiably the leader in this field by a margin. Essentially what such tech devices do is that they take one core need of their consumers and try to completely satisfy those. Over time, these devices such as iPods become an important medium by themselves. Extending this logic, companies have been trying to create such niches for themselves everywhere. But the underlying theme remains – customising products that would satisfy one particular need of their target consumer.Whats fascinating is that this isn’t only true for technology – its true across the spectrum of sectors. The field of finance with its gamut of instruments is an ultimate example of customisation at a very advanced stage. In this post, I try to look at different paradigms of customisation.

I have tried to defined customisation with respect to four different aspects:

1. Product Customisation
2. Service Customisation
3. Medium Customisation
4. Cost customisation

A classic case of product customisation is that of a netbook. What is a netbook? Its a laptop with lower configurations but still tackling a niche. Its ultra portable, connects to the internet and is enough for doing the basic things that a laptop should do. What they have done is attract those consumers who don’t wish to do heavy duty stuff on their computers and created a fantastic untapped market for themselves. I asked at the local croma store yesterday, and netbook sales are huge in India. The product- without much innovation has created a mass appeal, through extreme customisation!

There are so many examples of service customisations! The whole of Indian IT industry worth billions of dollars today is exactly that. Its a service customisation where the clients get world class service which is cost effective and dependable.

I briefly touched upon medium customisation in my earlier post. The thing about medium customisation is that the source has to constantly keep innovating and keeping abreast with the changing consumer preferences. In the past decade or so, we have moved from VHS cassettes to CDs to DVDs and we would keep shifting to new technologies . Such medium changes have huge implications for the content creators and they would have to adopt themselves with such shifting consumer preferences.

The latest example of cost customisation is the per second billing introduced by Tata Docomo. This frankly isn’t such a great deal. But aggressive promotion has created a unique place for per-second-billing concept in India. Just today, I heard other operators advertising their per second billing plans as well.

I am sure every industry will have its story of how radical customisation has been implemented with great effect. Do share your experiences about customisation in the comments section as well.

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