Swot Analysis : Value Chain

The value chain, made by Michael Porter, is really important to see how a company structure is created. The value chain is constituted by two parts: support activities (firm infrastructure, human resource management, technology development, procurement) and primary activities (inbound logistic, operations, outbound logistic, marketing and sales, service). (Johnson et al. 2011, p.97-99)

Value chain is a set of activities a company performs in order to provide a valuable solution to their customer problem in their market space or industry. The value chain is made up of primary and support activities. Primary activities being research and development, production, marketing and sales and customer service. These are the primary steps that are required to get a product or service to market to solve the customer problems. Some of the secondary steps include company

VA’s strengths and weaknesses are built based on the value chain assessment and SWOT analysis from the VA’s internal and external environment and the previous strategies. The environmental scanning was conducted and discussed relative to VA’s competition, as well as its strengths and weaknesses. In doing so, this analysis starts with the identified the strengths and weaknesses in the following graphs. VA strengths:

One of Porter’s main contributions was Porter’s value chain. The value chain is all the activities an organization undertakes to create value for a customer. According to Porter, there are two ways to gain an edge over competitors. A firm must provide comparable but value but perform the activities on the chain at a lower cost, or; Perform services in a unique way

“Competitive Advantage introduces the concept of the value chain, a general Framework for thinking strategically about the activities involved in any business and assessing their relative cost and role in differentiation”. Michael Porter, (1985).

A value chain analysis is a strategic analysis of an organization that uses value creating activities (Dess, McNamara, & Eisner, 2016, p. 76). The value chain analysis describes a company’s activities and relates them to an analysis of the competitive strength of the company

Effective value chain as a competitive advantage can contribute significantly to the prosperity of a firm in the competitive arena, but it can cause dire situations if not operated properly (Guy, 2011). However, there are conflicts among companies as to how stakeholders think they gain competitive advantage. Porter (1996) suggests: A company can outperform rivals only if it can establish a difference that it can preserve. It must deliver greater value to customers or create comparable value at lower cost or do both.

The basic principle in defining the value chain, according to Michael Porter (Porter, 1985), is that the activities include a variety of disaggregations from the below three perspectives. First, they have different economics, implying that these activities are functioning in different segments of the market. Second, even though the economics differentiation is not that evident, isolated activities should have a potential impact for it. Third, value-adding activities have significant input scale.

Value chain analysis looks at every step a business goes through, from raw materials to the eventual end-user. The goal is to deliver maximum value for the least possible total cost. It is a systematic approach to examining the development of competitive advantage. The most basic breakdown of primary functions includes inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, sales and marketing and service. People should use the other models and frameworks within this software to further differentiate between, and add to, these domains. Product Innovation is one area that is not normally included in the de jure model but is often included in the de facto model. Value Chain Analysis describes the activities that take place in

Starting a business implies to perform value-creating activities. All these activities are connected to the different stakeholders, such as suppliers, consumers or even marketing channels. Michael Porter defined the value chain as a combination of all support and primary activities that take part into the creation of the product or service. (See appendix to have a deeper description of all the activities). Creating value comes with the discovery of an opportunity and the exploitation of it. Michael Porter “created value chain analysis as a means to organize and understand the customer-value-creating activities and processes within a company” (Price, 2011). The company focuses on its internal business activities that affect its costs and that

Value chain is a part of the company’s core competences which plays a very important part to get competitive advantage on its competitors. A value chain is a whole series of activities that create value or add value to the end product. The total value delivered by the company is the sum of the total value built up all throughout the company. Michael porter developed this concept in his 1980 book ‘competitive advantage.

Value chain analysis, which constitutes the basis of strategic cost management, includes the value creation chain for a corporation, composed of all activities that create value, from the supply of raw materials to the supply of the product to the final consumer. (Yüzbaşıoğlu 2006, 402) In other words, value chain analysis is defined as a strategic tool used to comprehend the competitive advantage of an enterprise, to determine which stage of the value chain may be improved or in which stage the costs may be reduced, and to better apprehend the relationship of the corporation with the suppliers, customers and other enterprises in the sector. . (Blocher et al. 2005, 40).

A value chain is a chain of activities that a firm operating in a specific industry performs in order to deliver a valuable product or service for the market. The concept comes from business management and was first described and popularized by Michael Porter (Porter, 2013)

Value chain is an approach to know how an item or activities create value for consumers. The most of value provides to consumers, the most of competitive advantage an organization build. In this analysis, value chain model has separated into primary and support activities. Primary activities are included in the physical creation of the item and service. On the other hand, support activities give the inputs and infrastructure that enable the primary activities to happen. This value chain model can be refer to below figure 5.

The value chain analysis (shown in appendix) was also generated by Michael Porter. This model is referred to “identifying ways to increase the efficiency of the chain” (Investopedia, n.d.). Furthermore, the overall objective is to produce maximum value with minimum total cost and establish a competitive advantage.