Mass Customization and Beyond – Evolution of Customer Centricity in Financial Services

Robert WinterInstitute of Information Management, University of St. Gallen

Mail: Mueller-Friedberg-Strasse 8, CH-9000 St. Gallen (Switzerland)E-mail: Robert.Winter@unisg.ch

Phone: +41 71 224 2935 Fax: +41 71 224 2189

Abstract

For about a decade, mass customization is discussedas a generic methodology to individualize products andservices while preserving cost-efficient production pro-cesses. Particularly for information-oriented industrieslike financial services, the advent of electronic businessmay create new opportunities to individualize productsand services. In this paper, a product-oriented and aprocess-oriented approach to individualization of finan-cial services are presented: On the one hand, by adopt-ing configuration methods from mechanical engineer-ing, insurance (and banking) products can be generateddue to specific customer needs. On the other hand, byseparating a production-oriented ‘factory’ layer and acustomer process-oriented ‘integration’ layer in value-added networks, consumer processes can be supportedholistically.

1. Introduction

Mass customization means “that the same largenumber of customers can be reached as in mass marketsof the industrial economy, and simultaneously they canbe treated individually as in the customized markets ofpre-industrial economies” [4, 169]. It is often attributedto the post-industrial or information age, that consumersset the rules and that, as a consequence, even more indi-vidualization could be realized in an efficient form [9].“Being truly customer focused is not possible if the or-ganization is not, first, information intensive” [3, 9].

In this paper, directions of customer centricity andservice individualization for financial services in the in-formation age are analyzed. Based on a short analysis ofemerging business models and business architectures ofthe information age (Section 2), a product-oriented ap-proach to individualization (Section 3) and a process-oriented approach to individualization (Section 4) arepresented. The paper closes with conclusions and ashort outlook in Section 4.

2. Business in the Information Age

The most important business potential of IT innova-tions is that an advanced technical networking infra-structure together with an organizational business net-working infrastructure allow to broaden thetransformation scope from an isolated company (or acompany-centric view including direct customers anddirect suppliers) towards entire value networks.

Parallel to the networking sophistication in the busi-ness arena, internet literacy and internet access areavailable to a growing portion of end consumers. Bycommunicating directly with producers / service provid-ers via electronic channels, end consumers can be inte-grated into value networks more closely, and product /service design can be influenced more directly. Particu-larly for products bound to electronic media (e.g. infor-mation, music, movies, games, software) or financialproducts (e.g. loans, investments, insurance), the valuenetwork can be separated into a production-oriented‘factory’ and a consumer process-oriented ‘solutions’portion [15]. Since missing physical restrictions allowfor a flexible combination / aggregation of such prod-ucts / services, business models can be tailored to spe-cific needs of customer segments instead of having tofollow the structure of production processes.

Hence, two arenas contribute to the transformation toelectronic business: [15]

• Business-to-business arena (‘business networking’):inter-company business processes, shared servicesand flexible sourcing, electronic marketplaces

• Business-to-consumer arena (‘electronic com-merce’): direct access and direct response to prod-ucts and services by end consumers via electronicchannels, separation of (mass-)production processoriented portions of value networks and individu-alized combination / aggregation of products andservices

In Figure 1, the general business architecture of theinformation age is illustrated.

Business Bus

PublicServicePublic

Service

SharedServiceProvider

SharedServiceProvider

SharedServiceProviderShared

ServiceProvider

ServiceIntegratorService

IntegratorService

Integrator

ServiceIntegrator

ExclusiveServiceProvider

ExclusiveServiceProvider

ExclusiveServiceProvider

Figure 1. Business Architecture of the InformationAge [2]

The business architecture of the information agecomprises components that implement certain roleswhich do not exist in traditional business architecturesor at least are not pronounced to that extent: [15]

• Customer processes become the focus of the valuenetwork design. Service integrators aggregateproduct / service components produced by severalservice providers to create solutions that are tailoredto a specific, holistic customer process or a specificlife event. In most cases, information componentsbecome a more important solution component thanin traditional products.

• While most products / services are used by severalservice integrators, some products / services may beproduced for only one or few service integrators (orservice providers in later production stages). Byproviding such services, exclusive service providerscontribute to an unique selling proposition.

• While exclusive service providers are focussing onexclusivity, shared service providers produce largeamounts of standardized products / services for useby a large number of service aggregators. Sharedservice providers focus on mass customization andeconomies of scale. While it may be useful for ex-clusive service providers to maintain direct, exclu-sive networking links to service integrators, sharedservice providers need to use a common networkinginfrastructure for doing business with a large num-ber of other service providers and service aggrega-tors.

• The business bus is a flexible networking infra-structure that allows (shared) service providers andservice integrators to exchange electronic products,electronic services, and information. To allow forefficient business networking, a large number ofstandards is defined not only on the lower, commu-

nication oriented layers of the business bus (e.g.EDIFACT, XML based standards), but particularlyon the higher, business oriented layers (e.g. con-tracting standards, service level agreements).

• The business bus is complemented by several basic(electronic) services that are industry independentand process independent (e.g. certificates, pay-ments, creditworthiness information). These publicservices are closely linked to the business bus.

• Most end consumers have access to products /services using service integrators. However, if endconsumers wish to aggregate products / services bytheir own, they can access the business bus, too.

All types of service providers optimize their businessmodels with regard to their production processes. Incontrast, service integrators optimize their businessmodels with regard to customer processes or customerlife events, respectively. Business networking and theutilization of the business bus allow to separate produc-tion- oriented and customer process-oriented portions ofthe value network, thereby allowing different businessmodels to exploit their respective core competencies.

3. Mass Customization for Financial Serv-ices – A Product-oriented Approach

If complex products are manufactured, a model-based configuration of product variants has many bene-fits with regard to product data management, productionflexibility, and systematic resource management. Hence,product models and product configurators have been in-corporated into standardized production managementsoftware packages (e.g. SAP R/2 or R/3) and are also acommon feature in individual production and / or salessupport solutions of most investment goods manufactur-ers. An overview of configuration concepts can befound in [7]. Although complex products are also cre-ated by banks and insurance companies, a model-basedconfiguration of product variants can only be recentlyfound in standardized software packages (e.g. FJA’s orAlldata’s solutions [1]). In individual software solutionsand even some standardized software packages, productdata are usually ‘hard-coded’, i.e. product structures andfeature dependencies are hidden in tariff systems, ‘indi-vidual’ surcharges or reductions, and sales bundles [12].An important reason for the lack of product-orientationof most current software solutions is that product han-dling is distributed over numerous business unit relatedapplication systems (e.g. life insurance, health insur-ance, car / home insurance) and / or over numerousbusiness process related application systems (e.g. policymanagement, claim management, premium manage-ment). During the last decade, model-based configura-tion of products has been adopted by many financial

service companies to separate business unit support and/ or business process support from product data (andtariff) management, thereby enabling companies to im-plement product (and tariff) innovations more consis-tently, more flexibly and, what maybe most important,in much less time [17].

The conceptual basis for configuration of individu-alized products in financial service industries is pre-sented in subsection 3.1. Subsection 3.2 illustrates theconfiguration process using an example from the insur-ance industry. To create product variants (and standardproducts) from general product models, a certain set ofproduction rules is applied. If these rules are inverted, itshould be possible to link product variants (or standardproducts) back to the underlying, generalized productmodels. Such an ‘inversion’ of the configuration processallows for linking product variant related information(e.g. profitability) to the underlying product model,thereby guiding the product innovation process to focuson profitable products and to avoid unprofitable vari-ants. The ‘inverse’ application of configuration rules isdescribed in subsection 3.3. The contents of this section

have been initially developed in [12] and been elabo-rated in [13].

3.1. Configuration of Product Variants

Product configurators are usually utilized to deriveproduct variants as a combination of product comp o-nents and / or by checking the feasibility of given com-binations against a generalized product model [7]. Amore powerful concept that underlies state-of-the-artstandardized software packages for mechanical engi-neering companies is the concept of open variants [19,124-128]: Product variants are specified by certain val-ues for a set of attributes that depends on the respectiveproduct type. This results in a three-level hierarchy:Product types are assigned to attributes, and attributesare assigned to attribute values. Attributes may be com-pulsory or optional. Moreover, attributes may be single-valued (i.e. attribute values are exclusive) or multi-valued. Furthermore, values of different attributes maybe linked by dependencies (inclusion or exclusion).

Product type I

Attribute A

Attribute value 1

Attribute value 2

Attribute value 3

Attribute B

Attribute value 1

Attribute value 2

Product type II

Attribute C

Attribute value 1

Attribute value 2

Attribute D

Attribute value 1

Attribute value 2

Attribute value 3

Variant 1

Product type I

Attribute value A.2

Attribute value B.1

Variant 2

Product type I

Attribute value A.3

Variant 3

Product type II

Attribute value C.2

Variant 4

Product type II

Attribute value C.2

Attribute value D.1Attribute value D.2

(compulsory,single-valued)

(optional,single-valued)

(compulsory,single-valued)

(optional,multi-valued)

(not to be combined with D.3)

(must be combined with D.1)

(not to be combined with D.2)

Figure 2. Derivation of Product Variants (adapted from [13])

Based on an open variant model (right side), thederivation of four product variants (left side) is illus-trated by Figure 2. The simplified product model com-prises two product types I and II which are specified bytwo attributes A/B and C/D, respectively. While A andC are compulsory, B and D are optional. A, B, and C aresingle-valued attributes, while D may have more thanone attribute value. However, if C.1 is chosen, then D.1must also be chosen. Furthermore, D.2 may not be com-

bined with D.3. This simple product model implies atotal of 13 feasible product variants.

The simplified product model for open variants maybe elaborated by various types of additional constraints,creation of tables for maintaining feasible combinationsof attribute values, and integration of individual calcu-lation routines.

3.2. Application Example: Insurance Products

If configuration concepts from mechanical engi-neering are to be applied to financial services, two spe-cialties of services must be taken into consideration:

1. Not all product variants may be generated that aretechnically feasible. For services, it is essential tointegrate customer properties into the configurationprocess [12, 33-34].

2. While maximum flexibility has been the foundationof product models in mechanical engineering,service product variants primarily reflect regula-tions, pricing rules, customer properties, or riskproperties. Therefore, more constraints have to berepresented in general.

The primary advantage of an open variant productmodel for financial services is a simple representation ofconfiguration rules.

Car insurance

Minimum

$1 Million

Unlimited

Special tariff

Rural

Public serviceDamage/loss Cov.

LDW

CDW

Franchise

$300 for LDW

$650 for CDW

$1000 for CDW

Contract# K1234

Car insurance

$1 million liability cov.

Rural

Contract@ K1235

Car insurance

Umlimited liab.cov.

LDW/CDW incl.Franchise $1000

Contract# K1236

Car insurance

LDW/CDW incl.Franchise $300 LDW

Franchise $650 CDW

Minimum liab. cov.

Liability coverage

Figure 3. Insurance Contracts as Open Variants

Figure 3 illustrates the application of the open variantproduct model to financial services: Based on a generalmodel of car insurance contracts (right side), the deri-vation of three concrete contracts (left side) is shown.The notation is condensed from Figure 2 by denotingcompulsory attributes in bold font (vs. optional attrib-utes in normal font), values of single-valued attributesin italic font (vs. values of multi-valued attributes innormal font), exclusion rules as undirected arcs, and in-clusion dependencies as dotted, directed arcs. A detailedanalysis of the applicability of open variant productmodels to different insurance and banking service typescan be found in [12][13].

3.3. Inverse Configuration

Usually, product models are utilized to generate vari-ants based on a general product structure and a set ofconstraints. But it is also possible to utilize a productmodel in an inverse way: Since the generation rules forvariants based on the general model are known, infor-mation related to concrete variants can be transformedinto information related to product types, attributes, andattribute values. E.g., using the product model illus-trated by Figure 3, profitability information for insur-ance contracts could be transformed into profitability in-formation linked to the various liability coverage, tariff,damage/loss coverage, and/or franchise alternatives.This information is particularly valuable to supportpricing decisions or decisions regarding product struc-ture.

Contract type /product type

Actual contract /product variant

Product modelRule-basedconfiguration

Derivation ofinformation

Figure 4. ‚Forward‘ and ‚Inverse‘ Application ofProduct Models (adapted from [13])

Figure 4 illustrates the two different utilization di-rections of an open variant product model: While theusual configuration-type utilization creates productvariants from a general model of product types, its in-verse utilization derives type-level information fromvariant information.

4. Intentions Value Networks in FinancialServices – A Consumer Process-orientedApproach

Consumers are looking for ways to manage basicneeds and achieve basic objectives in a simplified way[6]. As an example, ‘travelling’ today often means thattravel products (e.g. flight, accommodation), bankingproducts (e.g. foreign currency), health products (e.g.vaccination), insurance products (e.g. baggage insur-ance), and information products (e.g. travel guide) haveto be purchased from different suppliers. This situationis illustrated by Figure 5. More complex objectives likeplanning for a secure retirement, moving to a new

community, or starting a new career require even moreproducts and services to be integrated. Such complexlife objectives have been designated as consumer ‘in-tentions’ [6].

Travel products

Banking products

Health products

Insurance products

“Travelling”

Figure 5: Intention ‘Travelling’ vs. TraditionalTravel Related Products and Services [2]

Since deregulation and globalization induce not onlymore choice, but also more complexity in consumer’sbuying decisions, isolated products and services loosetheir traditional importance. When buying is more andmore driven to create a holistic solution to a problem orto entirely satisfy an intention, companies which want tosucceed have to simplify consumer’s processes, i.e. byintegrating products and services for focussed customersegments.

The conceptual basis for consumer process-orienteddesign of business models is presented in subsections4.1 and 4.2 from the consumer’s and the provider’s per-spective, respectively. The contents of these subsectionshave been initially developed in [2]. Subsection 4.3 usesan example from retail banking to illustrate consumerprocess-orientation.

4.1. Modeling Consumer Processes – The Con-sumer’s Perspective

The consumer process from the consumer’s point ofview is based on a multi product mix which defines it-self according to the specific life event or intention thattriggers the buying process. At the beginning of thebuying process, the consumer does not always know theindividual products which constitute the final productoffered. Furthermore, this product does normally nothave a company-related brand so that consumer loyaltyis difficult to establish and the consumer lock-in processmust be redesigned [18, 103-171]. The problems weface for branding an intention-triggered product can be

compared to the difficulties which occur when estab-lishing a brand for a ‘traditional’ service product. Aphysical product, e.g. a specific car, ‘transports’ a brandand thus is recognized by the consumer due to its po-tential characteristics. A consulting company establishesa brand which is closely tied to its name, rather than itsproducts. In this case the branding process is much moredifficult, because the product cannot be directly recog-nized by the consumer. The product is defined by agood measure of imagination and suggestive power ofthe advertising campaign [10, 44-45]. The same is truefor an intention-triggered product: From the consumer’spoint of view, the lock-in is achieved by a product mix,which satisfies the intention in the best possible way,i.e. the most important characteristics of the product areits quality and degree of individuality. First experiencesof Web based aggregators show that ‘true choice’ and‘objective advice’ become more important constituentsof consumer loyalty than factors that can be attributed toisolated products [11].

The consumer process, which results from the abovediscussed points, can be defined as follows:

• Identification of an intention• Search for an aggregator which offers not only ap-

propriate solutions, but also ‘true choice’ and ‘ob-jective advice’

• Selection of appropriate solutions including desireddistribution and access channels

• Payment and ‘consumption’

4.2. Modeling Consumer Processes – The Pro-vider’s Perspective

Following an outside-in strategy, the consumer proc-ess from the provider’s point of view must be definedaccording to the process described in the preceding sub-section. This leads to the following provider’s processsteps:

• Identification and selection of communities / con-sumer segments. While traditional approaches arebased on income, geographical, educational, orsimilar segmentation, alternative approaches in-clude an analysis of individual attitudes [5].

• Anticipation of intentions. This analysis can bedone using an event-oriented approach (‘Which lifeevents are triggering buying decisions?’), a lifestage-oriented approach (‘In which life stages,which buying decisions are made?’, ‘Which lifestages precede / succeed which life stages?’), or acombination of both.

• Selection of ‘best of breed’ solution components. Inorder to provide ‘true choice’ and ‘objective ad-vice’, the network should be large, and selection

decisions should be made based on quality assess-ment rather than be based solely on profitability.

• ‘Assembly’ of solutions which contribute to thesatisfaction of one or more intentions.

• Support of all appropriate distribution and accesschannels. While maximum channel usage flexibilityshould be maintained in general, assignment deci-sions can be based on a content model [8].

• Obtaining and keeping a competitive position in thenetwork. For maintaining a favorable position in avalue-added network, the concept of networkability[14] has been proposed.

If a company is a component of an intention valuenetwork, it contributes to the final solutions by provid-ing components rather than being the last element of thesupply chain. Thus, several changes and effects result:

The consumer is no longer a ‘holistic’ marketingobject, but is segmented according to his or her inten-tions. The company must nevertheless know the inten-tions and the possible solutions in order to be able toproduce the ‘right’ product or service component. Cus-tomer relationship management in this context meansthat the service integrator as direct interface to the con-sumer has to individually care for him or her. As long asthe product was the link to a ‘faceless’ mass of medianconsumers, it could be manipulated according to moreor less fuzzy results of empiric research. Today, theconnection is directly established with the consumer andthe care must be ‘applied’ according to his wishes. Thatmeans that the product has to be individually custom-ized for a specific consumer. Otherwise, since theswitching costs are very low, the consumer can easilymove on to another integrator.

Customers from the companies’ point of view can bedivided into three groups:

1. End consumers which buy and combine productsand services directly (without using a service inte-grator)

2. End consumers which buy solutions, i.e. which use aservice integrator

3. Service integrators

Since, in the presence of service integrators, a directcontact to end consumers becomes increasingly difficultfor producing companies, differentiation as far as com-petitors are concerned must be created by other means.This can, for example, be done by banner advertising onthe respective Web site, targeting particularly customersin groups one and three. A prerequisite for being able todo this is that the company stays in the network. Thus,on the one hand, the company has to keep a direct con-tact to the service integrator and create a lock-in posi-

tion with it. On the other hand, and this must be themain ambition, the entire organization must be orien-tated towards keeping the position in the new businessarchitecture of the information age, which is developedin the next chapter.

Another important point of the multi product mix isthat it is constituted by products of different companies.Therefore we need a reliable standard for enabling theintermediaries [9] (service integrators) to assemble thefinal solution. Service integrators must be able to inte-grate product and service components by using a ge-neric method in order to achieve a maximum degree ofindividuality. Generic products can be integrated byusing product catalogues [16] which serve as productpool for creating individual solutions.

4.3. Application Example: Home Buying Proc-ess

Among the pioneer intention value networks createdin 1999 were ThirdAge and Quicken:

• ThirdAge.com ‘presents the best the Web has to of-fer for active older adults. ThirdAge.com offers richadvice and helpful information on topics critical tothe ThirdAge community, such as retirement hous-ing and estate management - areas typically ignoredor glossed over by traditional media.’(http://www.thirdage.com) By integrating servicesfrom Drugstore.com, E*Trade, GE Auto Insurance,IBM, Intel Relocator, Merrill Lynch, MillstoneCoffee, etc., and by partnering with Barnesandno-ble.com, Ecentives, Global Health and Fitness,Monster.com, Softwatch, Weather.com, Women'sHealth In-teractive, WorldRes, etc., ThirdAge.comtries to satisfy the intentions ‘achieve financial se-curity’, ‘maintain a healthy lifestyle’, ‘find appro-priate housing’, ‘expand personal horizons’, and‘explore the world’.

• Quicken’s insurance market claims to help custom-ers in making better, more informed decisions(http://www.insuremarket.com/event/). By inte-grating products from Allstate, MetLife, Prudential,State Farm, Transamerica, Travelers, Zurich, etc.and by providing lots of independent informationand support tools, life events like ‘buying a car’,‘getting married’, ‘buying a home’, ‘becoming aparent’, ‘leaving a job’, ‘getting divorced’, and ‘re-tiring’ are covered.

Quicken’s approach to integrating information andinsurance products into event-oriented solutions for pri-vate consumers has been extended by Credit Suisse, theretail banking unit of Swiss Credit Suisse Group, to aportal that is intended to holistically support the home

buying process. Yourhome.ch integrates geographicaland statistical information with services e.g. from realestate brokers, architects, interior designers, tax consult-ants, legal consultants, real estate consultants, movingcompanies, insurance companies, and of course mort-gage banks. In addition to general information andproduct-related information, among others a utility tolocate an address on a map and a utility to interior de-sign is provided. Of particular interest is the fact that,although the portal is provided by a bank, it is plannedto integrate products of competitors.

5. Conclusions and Outlook

We have presented two different individualizationapproaches to financial services. While the configura-tion approach allows to generate highly individualizedproduct variants if the open variant product model pro-vides for a sufficient number of attributes and attributevalues, the intention value network approach caters tospecific consumer intentions by integrating a large set aproducts and services. The first approach represents aninside-out view to individualization: Corporate productdevelopment tries to reflect consumer needs by offeringcustomizable services within the scope of the respectivecorporate mission. In contrast, the second approach rep-resents an outside-in view to individualization: Basedon an in-depth analysis of consumer processes, corpora-tions with complementary core competencies form avalue-added network to support consumer processesholistically. In an open finance setting, service integra-tors need flexible ‘product factories’ producing cus-tomizable products efficiently as well as product facto-ries need service integrators that provide effectivecustomer knowledge and effective customer care.

Current developments in the retail banking sectorsupport that hypothesis: Universal banks disintegrateinto product factories that produce shared services (e.g.transaction banks, online brokers, card services), exclu-sive service providers (e.g. risk management, invest-ment consultants), and service integrators (e.g. home-buying specialists, retirement specialists).Simultaneously, banks begin to collaborate with tradi-tional customer knowledge / customer care specialistslike insurance brokers, retailers, airlines, or portals.

If customers increasingly use integrators for processsupport in specific life stages and/or life events, how-ever, the question arises whether branding and loyalty-based customer management are sustainable ap-proaches. Long-term and holistic consumer relation-ships seem to be contradictory with a life event / lifestage-oriented, core competency-based approach.Moreover, it is in question whether the integrated dataneeded for customer knowledge management will be

available to an integrator, a network of service provid-ers, or only the consumer.

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