Value Chain Analysis

The term value chain refers to the various business activities and processes involved in creating a product or performing a service. A value chain can consist of multiple stages of a product or service’s lifecycle, including research and development, sales, and everything in between. The concept was conceived by Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter in the book The Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance.

This can also refer to simply seeing every actor or stakeholder that is required to provide value to a customer. For example, in the case of a credit card payment, the value chain includes the merchant, payment processor, card network, and issuing bank.