"If I asked my customers what they want, they simply would have said a faster horse.

" "People can have the Model T in any color--so long as it's black." -Henry Ford. Henry Ford was the founder of Ford Motor company, today the worlds third largest automobile maker based on worldwide vehicles sale. Often called the Father of mass production, Henry Ford is credited for revolutionising the transportation industry and bringing inexpensive products to the mass due to his breakthroughs in mass production. In 1903, Ford proclaimed, "I will build a car for the great multitude." In October 1908, he did so, offering the famous Model T for $950. In the Model T's nineteen years of production, its price dipped as low as $280. Nearly 15,500,000 were sold in the United States alone. By 1918, half of the cars in America were Model Ts. The simple to use and easy to repair car was available at extremely low prices which propelled its success. The car was only available in black and Ford did not offer any alternative colour or model for 19 years, the Model A being launched in 1927. Henry Ford had completely shaken the transportation industry with his entire product line boasting of only one car with no variations. Ford ignored the differences in the segments of consumers, and chooses to aim a single product at all segments (the whole market). At this time Ford was the only car manufacturer that produced an affordable car for the people of the middle class, which resulted in mass consumption. To meet the growing demand for the Model T, the company opened a large factory at Highland Park, Michigan, in 1910. Here, Henry Ford combined precision manufacturing, standardized and interchangeable parts, a division of labor, and, in 1913, a continuous moving assembly line. Workers remained in place, adding one component to each automobile as it moved past them on the line. Delivery of parts by conveyor belt to the workers was carefully timed to keep the assembly line moving smoothly and efficiently. The introduction of the moving assembly line revolutionized automobile production by significantly reducing assembly time per vehicle, thus lowering costs. Ford's production of Model Ts made his company the largest automobile manufacturer in the world. Initially it took 14 hours to assemble a Model T car. By improving his mass production methods, Ford reduced this to 1 hour 33 minutes. Today, market segmentation and a host of products are usually available for every kind of product. However single products or small product lines have their pros too. One of them is efficiency which can be illustrated by the T-model example. It helps developing the product rather than splitting efforts across multiple channels. The other important pro is focus. Without all the distractions of building, managing and selling multiple products, the finer details of the main offering can be honed, making it much better than any others in the market.

The question arises, can limited products be profitable for a company? The answer is yes, especially when targeted to average consumers and the following illustrations depict that.

A similar model was followed by Maruti Suzuki in India decades later in the 1980s when Maruti Suzuki launched their version of the Peoples car, Maruti 800. It was the best selling car in India till the year 2004, enjoying domination for nearly two decades in the industry. It has sold about 25 lakh units over this period. India's protected market meant that until the early eighties Indians had essentially three model choices in terms of automobiles: the Morris Oxford derived Hindustan Ambassador, the Premier Padmini and the Gazel. With all three products obsolete, quality construction more of an afterthought and attributes like power, safety and comfort being last on a manufacturer's to-do-list, the Indian automobile industry was going through what might be termed its anthracite period in history. The Maruti 800, in 1983, marked the introduction of the modern automobile into the Indian passenger car market. People were awed by Japanese reliability, ease of operation, refinement and fuel efficiency attributes that the small Indian passenger car industry, in 1983, was unable to provide. Till the year 1999 Maruti Suzuki had only three products to offer, the Maruti 800,Omni and the Gypsy. With a product line consisting of only three cars, Maruti targeted the first time car buyers and because of its low prices it made an excellent entry-level car. Due to the success of the three cars, primarily the 800, Maruti solidified its position in the market and till today is one of the biggest companies in the industry. Another company we will take into consideration is Microsoft and its product Windows, a graphical user interface operating system. The first version of Windows was announced in November 1983, when the market was largely dominated by Apple. By introducing a product which was available as a cheaper alternative to Apples Macintosh, Windows took a large portion of the market. Windows was only available in one variation without any hardware limitations like other rivals, thus making it popular amongst average consumers who were new to the computing world. Due to the fact that, it was a single product and available for cheaper than the other competitive products, it became hugely successful especially after the year 1990 after the launch of its third version, Windows 3.0. The marketing strategy deployed by Microsoft here was affordability. Windows was more affordable and it was almost as feature rich as Apples Macintosh. By keeping the product line small and simple, it lessened consumer confusion and enabled people to buy Windows. By using it for a number of years, they got used to the interface and started buying its newest versions instead of trying out other alternatives. Similar to the strategy adopted by Ford

for Model T, Microsoft offered only one product at a time, which made it the unrivaled leader in the Personal computers industry. Today, Microsoft has about 78% of the market share(statistic by W3Counter). It is difficult to imagine Microsoft would have had such success in the market if it sold many similar products at once as it would cause confusion amongst the customers who were unaware of the prospect of the product. Like Model T by Ford Motors, this completely revolutionised the computer industry and has been a major source of profit for the company making it one of the largest companies in the world.

To cite a more recent illustration, we can consider the iPod by Apple Inc. The iPod was launched by Apple in the year 2001. Initially when it was launched, it was available only in one variation and one colour, white. The iPod was hugely successful from the start as it was not only a niche product, but it was also affordable by the average customers. Because Apple had a small product portfolio, it allowed them to concentrate and focus on the iPod largely and hence improve it greatly to suit customer needs. By restricting too many models of it being available it allowed consumers a variation only in space. Due to this strategy, the iPods sales surpassed any other competitors and allowed Apple to earn huge profits. Here also, the model followed is similar to the one followed by Henry Ford for Model T. The number of products offered by Apple was small but the affordability of the iPod with the average consumers of USA made it a market success.