Interorganisational - Supply Chain Management

First there was standardisation, then product adaptation, then customising… till now it is the customer doing the lion share in developing a product or service. Harley and Land Rover owners have developed their own version of the vehicle for quite some time, to the extent that the brands live of the individuality of the final products and new vehicles are only there for inspirational models or “concept cars”. Ikea has outsourced the final assembly of products to the consumer (with some downsides for reverse logistics when half-assembled products come back just because the consumer was not able to take care of this final step), and what we have only learned to think about when e-grocers entered the market, retailing lives of consumers picking, weighing, packing and transporting their own items home.

Now the idea of consumer involvement in product development has seemingly entered the arena of services (at least considering service management literature). Not that it hadn’t been there before, just think of your local gym where it’s up to the consumer which of the services s/he uses in which order and according to which individual training programme. Theme parks and cruises offer similar possibilities of individually developing the “service experience”. So, what’s new about taking customising into the service arena?

Gyöngyi