Value chain analysis: Definition, examples, and strategies

Talk to anyone about what makes something valuable, and you’ll get dozens of different answers. Value is subjective in life—but pretty darn objective in business.

That’s because successful companies know that every choice made within their processes, supply chain, and business structure has intrinsic value. And increasing the value of each interaction and sale can lead to a significant increase in profit over the long term.

That’s where value chain analysis comes in. When you know exactly how much value each interaction and sale is providing—and work to increase it—you have the power to revitalize your supply and sales chains for maximum value and stand out from your competitors.

In this article we’ll explain exactly what value chain analysis is, walk you through its key components, and explain the benefits and process of conducting your own value chain analysis so you can drive your company toward a more profitable future.

In this piece:

• What is value chain analysis?
• Components of a value chain
• What are the benefits of a value chain analysis?
• How to conduct a value chain analysis
• Value chain analysis example

Purpose of value chain analysis

The purpose of value chain analysis is to give your company a clear path to greater profits. By understanding the value that your company brings to your audience, you can craft a more strategic sales plan and alter your chain activities to produce additional revenue.

Value chain analysis also helps your company determine the best strategies within the current market—not just with your audience. For instance, if you’re looking to offer new financial management software, your value chain analysis might help you decide how specific you want your targets to be and how much to charge for your product. By finding the gaps in the market, you can use price and quality to pinpoint the perfect niche.

Essentially, value chain analysis gives you a starting point for your entire sales and marketing approach. From initial ads to sales funnel analysis and lead qualification, all improvements stem from the value chain.

Components of a value chain

Our current model of the value chain comes from Michael Porter’s 1985 book, Competitive Advantage. Considering how quickly trends move in sales, the fact that we still use this model speaks to how well it works and how much it’s benefitted companies over the years. Porter breaks VCA into five primary activities and four secondary activities that together create value greater than the cost of performing those activities.

That premise makes sense: Profit is created when the overall cost of producing your product is less than the amount you sell that product for. However, it’s common to see companies that don’t track all aspects of product creation and therefore miss opportunities to increase profit margins.

That’s why we use Porter’s value chain analysis chart.

Value chain analysis chart

The VCA chart is broken into two sections: primary activities and supportive (or secondary) activities. Primary activities focus on the manufacturing of goods and services, while secondary activities back up primary activities.

The key to a successful value chain analysis is figuring out which processes are having issues and then implementing fixes in a timely fashion.

What are the benefits of a value chain analysis?

It’s clear that value chain analysis increases profit margin, but the importance of VCA goes far beyond revenue alone. The VCA process is all about streamlining and alignment. When done right, it not only boosts profits, it also:

• Establishes better vendor management

• Reduces cost and delivery times

• Optimizes inventory

• Improves customer relationships

• Standardizes and optimizes processes

• Helps you gain a competitive edge

That last benefit is arguably the most essential. No two businesses can survive by creating the exact same products and customer experiences, which means it’s never enough to simply match your competitors. To truly succeed, every business needs to find an edge. Whether in pricing, style, or quality, your company’s unique competitive edge makes you stand out from the crowd.

You can always examine your company’s value through alternative methods like customer surveys, but those methods don’t always provide consistent feedback or useful information.

Despite being time consuming, value chain analysis is the most reliable sales analytics tool when it comes to understanding the full scope of your company’s activities. As a result, it remains one of the best ways to pinpoint improvement opportunities across your various departments.

How to conduct a value chain analysis

There are two primary ways to look at value chain analysis depending on how you’re trying to edge out the competition:

1. Cost advantage analysis: pulling customers in with low prices
2. Differentiation advantage analysis: pulling customers in with unique benefits

Let’s take a closer look at both types of analysis.

Cost advantage

Cost advantage is all about lowering—everything except expectations, that is. With cost advantage analysis, you want to lower both the cost of production and the cost of products. If your company is aiming to do a cost advantage VCA, then you have a product that can be easily mass-produced and holds higher value as a low-cost item rather than a high-quality item.

Great examples of companies that use cost advantage VCA are McDonald’s and Walmart. They use low-cost production to sell massive amounts of products to customers on a daily basis with an emphasis on quantity over quality.

There are five steps to the cost advantage analysis VCA:

1. Identify primary and support activities. You need to list out all activities used in product creation, especially in supply chain management.
2. Identify the cost of each activity in regards to the overall product cost. If the overall product cost of a blender is $24, what percentage of that cost comes from each activity? If you discover that one or two activities are accounting for a huge percentage of the cost, scale those down.
3. Identify cost drivers for each activity. Cost drivers are quantifiable aspects of an activity. For example, the activities of human labor cost drivers include work hours, work speed (KPIs), and wage rate. These drivers are measurable using specific activity metrics.
4. Identify any links between activities. Some activities are related and decreased costs in one may lead to increased profit in another.
5. Identify opportunities for reduction. You can’t cut all production costs, but you can substantially lower them. Look at where your biggest costs are coming from and make adjustments. Some simple tweaks could include decreasing inventory variety, sourcing lower-cost materials, switching vendors, or automating parts of your labor force.

Differentiation advantage

In contrast to cost advantage analysis, differentiation analysis seeks to set a company apart for its product quality and brand value. Sometimes, this process can actually increase production costs, but as long as your overall profit margin increases, that’s fine.

Prominent examples of companies based on differentiation advantage VCA include Apple and Starbucks. Both of these companies sell relatively high-cost, high-quality products with high customization. They win over their customers with branding, features, and other non-financial aspects of their products. For example, you don’t buy a pumpkin spice latte because your wallet says it’s a good idea; you buy it because society now associates it with fun, status, and the essential fall Instagram picture.

There are three steps to differentiation advantage analysis:

1. Identify value-creating activities. Once you’ve listed all activities, pull the ones that contribute most to customer value. These could include marketing and branding, extra feature production and tech, etc.
2. Look at strategies for improving those activities to increase customer value. If your product value is coming from brand credibility, look at ways to increase that activity. Perhaps you want to look at social value-based selling and donate part of each purchase to a charity.
3. Identify a sustainable differentiation. Not all customer-value improvements are sustainable. Look for activity improvements that will keep generating profit over time.

Value chain analysis example

Here is a value chain analysis example for a common supermarket.

Based on low costs (inbound logistics and service), long hours (operations), and large amounts of distribution (procurement and outbound logistics), we can look at this example from a cost advantage point of view, meaning we’re looking for an opportunity to lower costs.

Overall, percentages look good for this company:

• None of the supermarket’s vendors account for more than 2.8 percent of purchase (procurement), which means it’s unlikely to switch

• Inbound logistics are extremely low and below half of the industry average

• Maximum work time is used for maximum production and distribution (operations)

So, what could the supermarket do to increase its profit margin?

Let’s take a look at our service primary activity. Universal returns is a policy that adds a lot of customer value and brand credibility, but it’s also a policy that costs mass production companies a significant amount of money. Because we’re looking at this company from a cost advantage point of view, it might be worth it for the supermarket to re-examine the return policy.

Supermarkets carry some items which can be reused and some which lose value upon sale (for example, produce). Keeping the refund policy but limiting it to non-perishables cuts back on losses and increases the profit margin while still allowing some refunds (maintaining brand credibility).

Use sales reporting software to help manage your VCA

Running a full VCA requires a massive amount of data; the last thing you want is to end up spending more time and effort on a value chain analysis than it’s worth. A sales CRM like Zendesk Sell gives you on-demand data whenever you need it. With an easy-access and intuitively designed sales dashboard and industry-leading sales productivity tools, your company can compile the data you need without wasting resources.

Request a demo today and see how data-driven value chain analysis can rapidly increase your profit margin.