The challenge for companies is not achieving a single point of focus. It is harmonizing multiple points of focus. No company is immune from the new customer mantra: "I want what I want." In industry after industry, customers are demanding ever-higher levels of customization - products and services tailored to their needs. And they're confident that, in an economy characterized by greater and greater information transparency and laden with information technology and operational advances that make customization possible, they stand an excellent chance of getting it - from inside or outside their existing supplier base.

The way a company adapts its business model and its organization to demands for customization can make the difference between performance that leads a sector and performance that lags industry peers.

Cisco. Sony. Palm. Contract manufacturers gave OEMs more supply chain headaches than solutions. What went wrong. What needs to be done.

Editor's Note: I think this is an interesting counter-balance to the arguments made by Don Tapscott in "Rethinking Strategy in a Networked World (or Why Michael Porter is Wrong about the Internet)"
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