Personalization, Customization and New Product Development in a Web Environment
Amit Basu and Joakim Kalvenes
The emergence of the World Wide Web as a marketplace for consumer and industrial goods has increased the geographical reach for vendors offering their products to a set of potential customers. The wider geographical reach can break down some of the barriers to market size imposed by national boundaries, as well as those created by transaction costs emanating from distance-related activities such as transportation of goods and customers to the point of transaction. As the potential customer base increases for any vendor's products, so does the economic feasibility of product differentiation based on consumer taste and preferences. In other words, as the World Wide Web creates a potentially global marketplace, we can expect to see an increase in product variety as each preference-based segment reaches critical demand in order to be profitably supplied. Simultaneously, production and inventory management processes have been transformed so that manufacturing enterprises are better able to respond to changes in consumer preferences. Examples include the development of flexible manufacturing systems, supply chain management techniques and agile manufacturing. In this project, we will explore the emerging technologies for online display of product features and explain what the effects of adoption of these technologies imply for the further development of online product customization and personalization. Also, we will provide managerial insights for new product development practices, manufacturing practices and vendor-customer interaction.
Projects
2002-2003
2001-2002
Technical Reports
Special Emphasis
