The Influence of the European Union’s WEEE Directive on the Mobile Phone Industry’s After-sales Services

• Main Authors: Wei, Ju Chien, 魏汝倩
• Other Authors: Hsu, Mu Yen
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/01769490437771830488

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 國際經營管理碩士班(IMBA) === 97 === Given the rising consciousness for environmental protection, the majority of countries in the European Union (EU) have adopted the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive. The Directive tackles a fast increasing waste-stream of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) and reduce the amount of this waste going to landfills by improving reuse, recovery and recycling rates under the principle that the "polluter should pay". The main conclusions of this research are as follows: 1. If the mobile phone industry follows its traditional after-sales service model, WEEE had a significant impact on the cost of after-sales services, dropped gross margins, added uncertainty to the collection period, changed the cost basis, and raised the percentage of overall costs for after-sales services, and cost percentage of transfer price would also increased. 2. The MDRS (Mobile Device Recovery Solution) model for dealing with such problems provides a feasible solution for the mobile phone industry, but need to be refined to improve results. 3. The mobile phone industry is now driven to a large extent by fashion and design, but this creates a conflict in designing mobile phones between easy assembly and disassembly of tailored items with the needs for environmental protection and after-sales service needs. Research on this conflict can offer the mobile phone industry valuable insights for developments of newer models. 4. Although this research proposes MDRS model, it can only be put into practice based on the combined values of the price of the platform and the charges of Operators. The final calculation of the price of mobile phones and the generation of rental rates for consumers, as well as the revenue allocation between Operator and Brand can only be worked out by the two working together in concert for mutual benefit.