Value Chain : Competitive Advantage

In order for a firm to create competitive advantage, it needs to create a set of activites that can deliver value to the specific product and services it offers to its customers. To start talking about my life as a “value chain”, I may need to compare it to a specific product”. This is going to take precedence both in my personal life and professional life.

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.

The value chain is one of the critical elements of a company’s strategy in today’s competitive world, because company’s profit depends on how the successful and efficient it runs its operations and how the end product appeals to the customers at a price that covers all the expenses 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 value chain is one of the critical elements of a company’s strategy in today’s competitive world, because company’s profit depends on how the successful and efficient it runs its operations and how the end product appeals to the customers at a price that covers all the expenses of the company.

According to the value chain analysis, a business adds value to its products or services through a series of activities it performs within the company. First, the primary value activities describe the production, the selling, and after-sales support for its products and services. Second, the support value activities describe all business functions needed to provide the human resource, the technology, the infrastructure, and the supplies (Baltzan, 2012). EG Inc. coordinates all its value-adding activities using an MIS infrastructure, comprising of a supply chain management (SCM) system, customer relationship management (CRM) system, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, and as a result increases productivity, reduces cost, optimizes business operations, generates growth, and increases profitability (Baltzan,

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

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.

SF has its own value chain model consisting of two major parts just like other business, support and primary parts. The support part includes basic facilities and administration related to finance and accounting, infrastructure finance such as regional offices and distribution centers, human resources, and IT support. All of those support activities above enable SF effectively finish their jobs and nicely serve their customers. The primary stage of SF’s business consists of three main components including logistics, marketing and sales, and customer service. Basically, the logistic activities at primary level involve the activities of delivering customers’ parcel package to the right destination safely and quickly by scheduling, calculating routes, transportation planning. In general, the primary activities are considered as a process of taking care of customers from the beginning when they place the order of delivering service, the middle time for packages information tracking, and the end about the package condition and the fulfillment to the delivery promise. About the

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

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)

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)

The five primary activities are: inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and service. The four support activities are: procurement, technology development, human resource management, and infrastructure.

SUPPORT ACTIVITIES: Activities that can directly lead to value and give the consulting group a competitive edge according to Michael

Millennials are on the verge of being the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the world. This group account for nearly $30 trillion of spending. One aspect that is interestingly unique to this group is that they are well versed on where they spend their dollars. Millennials prefer to do business with corporations and brands with pro-social messages, sustainable manufacturing methods and ethical business standards. (Landrum, 2017) Millennials are recognizing that they will inherit the earth and they are invested in keeping organizations honest, ethical, and socially responsible. Organizations hoping to capture this group’s loyalty and be competitive will need to invest in bettering society and the environment. The companies will need to be transparent in their marketing efforts about how they