Customerisation....

The meaning of the title given to this piece is self explanatory. In marketing the concept of customisation is when the company gives some alterations, some additional features to a basic product in line with the demands from a set of customers. For example the customer might want a different kind of paint job to the car according to his liking. That’s customisation.

Now the marketer has gone one step further and is willing to provide many more significant changes to the product for the customer. For example we have car manufacturers (very small in number tough as of now) which will manufacture a car exactly of your requirement, the engine size, the shape, the tyres, almost everything.

Though the concept of customerisation is relatively new to the world of marketing, it’s not all that new to the world of humans. Infact its been in existence since ages. A very simple example will prove my point, this goes for all the men (well almost), who are very well behaved, well groomed, well mannered and you can put many other good adjectives preceded by ‘well’ to describe men in ‘front of women’. See now you know what am I talking about. I hope you agree. And then there is the other side of them when they are no women around, there are some other species all together. That’s called customerisation. Giving whats expected from us.

Same is the case with a situation of say an interview. We have different answers for the same question asked in different companies that we sit for. When I was to sit for Accenture interview in my campus placements (DJ Sanghvi), I was suppose to be a little aggressive and profit oriented, and then preparing for Infosys interview I had to put on the ethical me mask. See customerisation again.

Living in a society where Maslows hierarchy plays a role and social needs being the 2nd most basic need, we cannot upset the people around us. So what we do is customerize our behaviour according to how we are expected to behave and be. We put on different masks for professional life, life with friends, life with family and so many other masks just to fit in, so much for customerisation.

Or else live like the protagonist of the Ayn Rand’s novel ‘Fountain Head’, ‘Howard Roark’. He was a man who didn’t care about what people expected out of him and he didn’t give in to the requirements of the society, to fit in. He went about his own merry way (but faced a lot of hardships in the process) doing what gave him satisfaction and not going for customerisation of any kind.

Its very difficult to live a life like that now in this tough world. But it would be very good if we could do that, if we could be just what we are and not what people expect us to be. It would be great if I was a constant who will have no masks but ‘me’, but alas in this doggie dog world as subbu calls it there is no place for such a behaviour. So customerize and suffice the world.

Zindagi rocks !!!!