Web or Chains: The Quest for Value

Abstract

Vertical integration is not the only traditional concept that has been challenged in the current business environment where firm and industry boundaries have blurred, speed of technological change is increasing, and the focus of business has shifted from products to services. The whole concept of value creation is being reevaluated: in the past, value was created sequentially as a product’s value increased as it moved through a chain of activities — a value chain — from raw material to end products. However, today the value is being created constantly and in parallel. The main source of value is no longer in physical goods and products, but increasingly in services, skills, and knowledge. This development has forced researchers and businesspeople to look for new ways of modeling the concept of value creation. In this chapter, we will review some of the models and frameworks that have challenged the old value chain concept. The goal is to find useful frameworks that would help us to understand what is actually happening in the mobile industry today and in the future.