Does N=1 negate the rationale of the industrial revolution and its fruits?
The rationale of industrial revolution was scale and standardisation. Hence efficiency in operations, managing variance in production and delivering the same product to all the customers were the norm as in Ford Model T. Our N=1 concept demands flexibility and agility in the business processes. In an N=1 model, firms will start with a base product or service and then co-create unique experience for each customer. However this flexibility cannot be at the cost of efficiency. We need both efficiency and flexibility. N=1 business model demands the art of managing this tension between flexibility and efficiency to achieve profitability through co-creation of unique experience with customers. Our point is that emerging platform for business processes and customer connection makes this possible. The Virtual works platform for business processes from Ramco System in Chennai and collaborative social networking platforms from Google or Facebook for customer connection are some examples discusse
