In 250 words provide a response analyzing the below post. You must utilize at least 3 scholarly resources. Acceptable sources include the textbook, the Bible, outside scholarly articles, etc. Substantive replies, in contrast to perfunctory replies, add value to the discussion, enhance learning, and contain references to any new concepts or ideas presented. The following suggestions will aid you in successfully composing substantive responses:· Compare/contrast the findings of others with your research.· Compare how the findings of others relate/add to the concepts learned in the required readings.· Share additional knowledge regarding the key topic that relates to the thread.

Key Concept: Customization

1. Key Concept Explanation: Define your key topic using a source other than the textbook. Give a concise overview of the essential elements relevant to understanding your crucial case. In addition, explain why you are interested in this topic (e.g., academic curiosity, application to a current issue related to employment, or any other professional rationale). This section must be at least 100 words.
   1. Customization is when offering a product or service that can be modified to the customer’s needs and desires (Meredith & Shafer, 2020). Within customization, certain variables must be considered; these include flexibility and mass customization, which are crucial elements, and other parts of customization that are important to understanding the effects of customization on modern economies and production (Meredith & Shafer, 2020). This is a topic of interest because of the rampant increase in mass customization, its effects on modern business, and how it will be expanded upon in the future with the current trends and ideas that will allow for additional production capabilities.
2. Comparison: Compare your research with what you have studied during the module in which the key topic/thread is assigned. Note differences or commonalities about your key topic, providing evidence that you have extended your understanding of this topic beyond the textbook readings. This is an opportunity for you to cite the additional articles you originally researched. This section must be at least 200 words.
   1. The research was done on how word-of-mouth behaviors changed with the amount of product customization found. Is study understood that customization encourages word-of-mouth behavior and that proposing additional customization to the customers would speed up word-of-mouth behavior (Wang, Yu, Feng, & Song, 2022). This would align with the module reading, stating that aligning with customers will allow for a better, more loyal customer base but impact production speed (Meredith & Shafer, 2020). Another study looked at product customization in comparison to customer demand and found that while customization is good, if it strays too far from the brand it would drive away certain customers which would be a differentiation from the last article that said customers increase in word-of-mouth, but onliy if it is still according to the brand, from this articles study (Pallant, Sands, & Karpen, 2019). Another article focused on the customer’s learning process of understanding how to customize a product which is another important consideration as this study found that just having the illusion of choice was the only critical necessary ingredient when making a site or phone call easy when allowing customer customization (Stevens & Jouny-River, 2020). This idea would further that customization is an idea that is worth pursuing as it is impactful for customers. The last article that will be discussed revolves around the cognitive ambiguity of interactive customization. What this idea and study say is that ensuring there is a text-image-symbol is vital for customers to understand what is being created and thus provides that having a common set of customization standards is critical when developing production capabilities for this type of production (Zeng, Zhou, He, & Tang, 2020). While researching customization, these were some of the core commonalities and differences found in the research.
3. Article Summary: In your own words, provide a clear and concise summary of the article you selected. This section must be at least 200 words.
   1. The article chosen for a summary is ‘The Relationship between Servitization and product customization strategies.’ This article aims to look at how product customization and servitization strategies garner relationships between product customization strategy intensity and degree of servitization (Sousa & Silveira, 2019). Servitization offers basic and advanced product versions, while customization is when customers are offered more customizable products (Sousa & Silveira, 2019). This study used partial least squares path modeling to look at data from the Sixth International Manufacturing Strategy Survey, which involved 931 manufacturers in 22 countries (Sousa & Silveira, 2019). What was discovered in this article was that customization strategy intensity is positively associated with servitization (Sousa & Silveira, 2019). So this means that when looking for a strong product customization strategy, it is essential to include servitization products so consumers are not overwhelmed by choice. Knowing this means that when manufacturers are pursuing product customization strategies, they may be in a place where offering the servitization products in addition, based on the outcome of the results and how they are meant to be understood. So this study looks at the relationship between product customization strategies and servitization to see if including basic and advanced product designs with a product customization list is viable.
4. Biblical Integration: Include at least 3 appropriate biblical references. Explain the relevance of your key topic to God’s law and how it can be applied in a Christian context. This section must be at least 100 words.
   1. When looking at how product customization is represented or is relevant to a biblical worldview, it is not easy to find appropriate verses, but here are a few that align with the goal of these missions. First, Romans 14:21 says, “It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble” (English Standard Version Bible, 2001). This verse is related to product customization because when thinking of things to help others, having the freedom to choose the best product for the case is essential in not letting others down, like a customer, and having them find another business. The next verse, Genesis 27:28, “May God give you of the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth and plenty of grain and wine” (English Standard Version Bible, 2001). One of the themes of product customization is that too much choice will leave customers in choice paralysis, which is not good, so allowing some premade options is always a good idea, as God made the decisions for the Israelites in this passage and verse. The last verse is in Genesis 9:3, “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything” (English Standard Version Bible, 2001). While we can never attain the level of choice the Lord gives us, giving consumers an ultimate choice and free will o Yet, they still fail for the Lord, which is why diversifying into servitization would be an optimal business plan.
5. Application: Specifically state how your key topic has been applied to real-world businesses or describe the potential your key topic has to influence today’s business world. This section must be at least 100 words. Your application must possess a professional rationale demonstrating your key topic’s significance.
   1. In a hypothetical business looking into making a custom shoe store, it is essential to understand what customization means for consumers entirely. Based on the research done, customization can garner many benefits such as additional customers based on products, but ensuring that the brand being used is still in the spirit of what is customizable. Like with Nike, you can customize sneakers, but at the end of the day, there will be a swoosh somewhere on that shoe, which is what many customers look for when they buy Nike products. Customization also gives a business in an industry with low customization an edge over the competition. Every customer’s needs are different and may need a company that can meet them when the competition cannot.

References

English Standard Version Bible. (2001). Crossway Bibles.Meredith, J., & Shafer, S. (2020). Operations and Supply Chain Management for MBAs. Danvers: Wiley.Pallant, J., Sands, S., & Karpen, I. (2019). Product Customization: A Profile of Consumer Demand. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 54, 1-10. doi:10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.102030https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.102030Links to an external site. This article was used to understand how demand and product customization are related and whether their relationship is strong enough to warrant continued investigation. This study excelled in providing a clear and concise analysis that allowed the reader to find the information they needed quickly and for success when trying to utilize the study results to further additional writings. The correlation between consumer demand and product customization made this article essential when examining how customization affects businesses and their decisions. Knowing that there is an ability that would allow for better interpretation of other documents and relationships that can be formed with understanding demand and its influence on decisions.Sousa, R., & Silveira, G. J. (2019). The relationship between servitization and product customization strategies. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 39(3), 454-474. doi:10.1108/IJOPM-03-2018-0177https://liberty.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/openurl?institution=01LIBU_INST&vid=01LIBU_INST:Services&rft.volume=39&url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:ofi%2Fnam:urn:ISSN:0144-3577&rft_id=info:doi%2F10.1108%2FIJOPM-03-2018-0177&url_tim=2023-05-19T15:32:54Links to an external site. This article’s value is from how in-depth a study was accomplished and can help provide additional insights into other decisions that need to be made when considering how customization can be added to a company. This study, in particular, addresses that customers sometimes have difficulty choosing when there are too many options. This study strives to fully understand if having some static options that are not customizable would be beneficial. The study found a correlation between having a static product and having customization options, as having the static products allowed consumers that do not care or need as much choice to quickly find what they need and allowed for better diversity of products for the business.Stevens, E., & Jouny-River, E. (2020). Customers’ learning process during product customization: The case of online configuration tool kits. Information & Management, 57, 1-12. doi:10.1016/j.im.2020.103347https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2020.103347Links to an external site. This was an article that brought another concern of customization to the table. The study was on how online customization configuration tools affect the customers and the level of demand created based on the learning curve for customizing a product. What was found was that there were correlations in the effectiveness of customization when there were no coherent customization programs associated with the products or services being offered. Thus if there is a way to have a product be more customizable, there should be a short learning curve on the ease of use of actually customizing the product or service; if it is not, then there will be significant distinctions and discrepancies in who will ultimately utilize these tools.Wang, X., Yu, X., Feng, F., & Song, P. (2022). Impact of product customization level on consumer’s word-of-mouth behaviors and contents: a field study. Information Technology & People, 1-27. doi:10.1108/ITP-06-2021-0482https://liberty.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/openurl?institution=01LIBU_INST&vid=01LIBU_INST:Services&rft.volume=ahead-of-print&url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:ofi%2Fnam:urn:ISSN:0959-3845&rft_id=info:doi%2F10.1108%2FITP-06-2021-0482&url_tim=2023-05-1Links to an external site. Another exciting topic studied was the effect of word-of-mouth discussions when there are customizable product or service offerings. Being able to do a study on this helps us understand the other impacts that this fundamental concept has on the business and everything associated with it. What was found in the study was that when businesses offered the ability to customize products and services, there was an uptick in the amount of word-of-mouth activity which would end up increasing the profits and value of the business long-term through having the most effective type of advertisement spread and be able to interact with the most amount of customers based on a business style.Zeng, D., Zhou, Z., He, M., & Tang, C. (2020). Solution to Resolve Cognitive Ambiguity in Interactive Customization of Product Shape. International Journal of Computational Intelligence Systems, 13(1), 565-575. doi:10.2991/ijcis.d.200511.001https://doi.org/10.2991/ijcis.d.200511.001Links to an external site. This article attempts to look into how cognitive ambiguity in interactive customization could be resolved and how this would solve many issues many companies brought forth when considering the idea of customization. What is primarily focused on is text-based images and the effects that these have on customers when looking at interactive customizations. What was found was that certain types of designs were more effective than others which would eventually be seen to be primarily based on what is trying to be accomplished by their businesses when trying to solve these issues about the customization interaction problem they are experiencing.