CHAPTER 2
Applying Standardization to Information Systems
WHETHER THEY HAVE ONE CUSTOMER or one thousand customers, most companies have learned they have to give customers what they want. You have to customize your product to meet their needs and desires, be it a different color, an unusual size, different packaging, or highly engineered options. Regardless of what you provide, a common truth is that all companies need to modify their products or services to satisfy the customer. Most of the time, they’d rather not.
Evidence of this attitude is a question we have heard over the years, sometimes in frustration and sometimes in desperation: “Why can’t the customer order what we want to sell?” Every company has a developed product that it believes ...
