Mass Customization

Ch. 7: Mass customization of products has become a common approach in manufacturing organizations. Discuss ways in which mass customization can be applied to service firms as well.

Mass customization is the belief that customers want products and services as exclusive as their diverse tastes and preferences at prices that translates into greater value. The need for service firms to embrace mass customization is motivated by customer expectations and organizations trying to develop and withstand competitive advantage over rival companies. With development in new technologies and different methods of thinking about strategies that will put the customers at a high priority, mass customization in service firms put the focus on answering customers' needs and wants. Mass customization is a business strategy for profitably

providing customers with anything they want, anytime, anywhere, in any way (Hart, 2006). Dell uses mass customization when they allow customers to build their own laptop. Dell let customers add or subtract features that they do not want on their computer.

Ch. 7: A top executive claimed that top-level management is a craft technology because the work contains intangibles, such as handling personnel, interpreting the environment, and coping with unusual situations that have to be learned through experience. If this is true, is it appropriate to teach management in a business school? Does teaching management from a textbook assume that the manager's job is analyzable, and hence that formal training rather than experience is most important?

Teaching management in business school is still necessary. A combination of formal training and experiences are both needed in one way or another. Both have their use and it depends on what type of job a person is pursing. Many techniques and procedures that top-level managers have used could not have been learned anywhere else except through experiences. However, the fundamentals that are learned in a management textbook do not make a manager's job analyzable but it is important to learn about different methods that were used by a variety of different management concept. In general, it does not hurt to have more education, but that education does not compensate for the experience that will be obtain on the job.

Ch. 8: Do you think technology will eventually enable top managers to do their job with little face-to-face communication? Discuss.

Yes, because with the advancements of technology managers have become significantly reliable on using other forms of communications in which, causes a lack of face-to- face communication. Communication is the main requirement when it comes to a manager and employee relationship. Managers realize that in today's society information move at a rapid pace and managers need to keep up in order to stay abreast on new developments. More managers are mobile so getting information to their employees as quickly as possible is a necessity. Emails, text messages, and video conferences are all use by managers to give and received information in minutes. Managers spend most of their day engaged in communication; in fact, older studies of how much time managers spend on various activities show that communication occupies 70 to 90 percent of their time every day (Mintzberg, 1973).

Ch. 9: Look through several recent issues of a business magazine such as Fortune, BusinessWeek, or Fast Company and find examples of two companies that are using approaches to busting bureaucracy. Discuss the techniques these companies are applying.

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