The (il)logic of ownership
Exploring alternative commercial offers for mobile devices
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Abstract
Recent experience has clearly shown that mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets are difficult to get back from customers to close loops through current end-of-pipe collection solutions. This paper explores the potential of a shift in business logic away from ownership as its central concept, to use or value (through e.g. leasing or pay-per-use). In other words, a shift towards alternatives to the classic sales offer (where product ownership is transferred to the customer in one transaction). An appealing advantage of these alternatives is that a company retains control over its devices, facilitating resource recovery. Consequently, these concepts seem particularly interesting from a circular economy perspective as they could have the capacity of decoupling economic value creation from material input. To make the opportunities of such a transformation more conceptual, the paper aligns terminology and taxonomy of commercial offers for mobile devices and provides an overview of what defines alternative commercial offers.