The Emergence of New Business Models

Chapter 4 discusses the emergence of entirely new business models enabled, inevitably, by technology and which challenge long-established notions of what it means to be a retail enterprise. The business models for established retail enterprises are being reshaped by the need to make heavy investments in areas such as logistics and IT that have historically been regarded as support functions rather than as integral to the sustained competitive advantage and success of the enterprise. Moreover, established retailers are competing with aggressive and effective enterprises such as internet-enabled platform providers with entirely different business models. As well as a competition between philosophies of what it means to be a retailer, this is a competition between very different business models.