ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the concept, its background, and the fundamental capabilities that companies have to develop when building a mass customization offering. There are many companies that have employed mass customization successfully. Consider the following examples: BMW, Selve and mymuesli. Companies that successfully master the proposition of mass customization have built competencies around these three core capabilities. Authors called them "solution space development," "robust process design," and "choice navigation". The chapter differentiates three options here: the fit, the functionality, and the form of an offering. The configuration toolkits to facilitate user co-design with products in use can be either embedded toolkits or connected toolkits installed in smart devices. The chapter describes three strategic capabilities that companies need to build and utilize to make a mass customization business model work. It argues that mass customization could be regarded as a response to today's opportunities in terms of heterogeneous demands and the need of companies to become truly customer-centric.
