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Owning the consumer - getting to the core of the Apple business model

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posted on 2023-06-08, 23:35 authored by Johnna Montgomorie, Samuel Roscoe
This paper uses a business model framework to analyze the main limitations of Apple Inc. post-2003, a significant turning point in the company's history. As such, we move beyond an exclusive focus on what makes Apple unique or different by evaluating the mundane and out-dated elements of its business model. To do so, we examine the end-to-end supply chain, from source to store, to present a more holistic evaluation of the Apple business model. Drawing on the existing literature, we argue that the quintessential element of the Apple business model is its ability to ‘own the consumer’. In short, the Apple business model is designed to drive consumers into its ecosystem and then hold them there, which has been hugely successful to date and has allowed Apple to wield enormous power in the end-to-end supply chain. We demonstrate this through a detailed evaluation of Apple's physical and content supply chains and its retailing strategy. Moreover, we find that the very business processes that enable unparalleled corporate control bring with them new problems that Apple has thus far been unable, or unwilling, to adequately address.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Accounting Forum

ISSN

0155-9982

Publisher

Elsevier

Issue

4

Volume

37

Page range

290-299

Department affiliated with

  • Business and Management Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2015-12-01

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2015-12-01

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2015-12-01

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