Lands End ANALYSIS
Custom Made Apparel and Individualized Service at Lands’ End: Analysis
Lands’ End’s story is an optimistic example of how Information Technology (IT) can support a business model that “recognized the desirable economics of the Internet” (Ives & Piccoli, 2003). The company provides a unique and customized end user experience to purchase products that are designed specific to the customer’s needs. This analysis will highlight positive and negative methods taken by the company and provide suggestions for future consideration. Lands’ End provides a competitive advantage that is contingent upon it IT-driven strategic initiatives. The business is able to offer customized products at a similar cost of high production products with significant revenue gains. Mass customization (MC) is a significant part in the successes of Lands’ End IT-driven strategy that allows the company to reach a vast majority of customers around the world. Helms et al. (2008) investigate e-commerce and information management and found that e-commerce provides capabilities for the MC service provider to reach global market and helps in learning about customer preferences. They divulged that information management can help manage the intellectual capital. They pose a strong argument that both e-commerce and information management can significantly improve the implementation of mass customization. Alternatively, Lands’ End IT-driven strategy is somewhat in the hands and control of Archetype Solutions (ATI), since they developed and hold the design of the entire IT system Lands’ End e-commerce uses with its customers. This allows Lands’ End’s customers to catch up and takes away the customer advantage if they acquire the existing system ATI has created. Additionally, Lands’ End IT resources are very difficult to replicate gathering all the customers’ information from what (i.e., color, type of clothing, size, etc.) they are purchasing, how often (i.e., seasonal, daily, weekly, etc.) they are
Lands’ End’s story is an optimistic example of how Information Technology (IT) can support a business model that “recognized the desirable economics of the Internet” (Ives & Piccoli, 2003). The company provides a unique and customized end user experience to purchase products that are designed specific to the customer’s needs. This analysis will highlight positive and negative methods taken by the company and provide suggestions for future consideration. Lands’ End provides a competitive advantage that is contingent upon it IT-driven strategic initiatives. The business is able to offer customized products at a similar cost of high production products with significant revenue gains. Mass customization (MC) is a significant part in the successes of Lands’ End IT-driven strategy that allows the company to reach a vast majority of customers around the world. Helms et al. (2008) investigate e-commerce and information management and found that e-commerce provides capabilities for the MC service provider to reach global market and helps in learning about customer preferences. They divulged that information management can help manage the intellectual capital. They pose a strong argument that both e-commerce and information management can significantly improve the implementation of mass customization. Alternatively, Lands’ End IT-driven strategy is somewhat in the hands and control of Archetype Solutions (ATI), since they developed and hold the design of the entire IT system Lands’ End e-commerce uses with its customers. This allows Lands’ End’s customers to catch up and takes away the customer advantage if they acquire the existing system ATI has created. Additionally, Lands’ End IT resources are very difficult to replicate gathering all the customers’ information from what (i.e., color, type of clothing, size, etc.) they are purchasing, how often (i.e., seasonal, daily, weekly, etc.) they are