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Global Business Strategy

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION 3
THE VALUE CHAIN 3
THE VALUE ADDING ACTIVITIES 4
THE PRIMARY ACTIVITIES 4
THE SUPPORT ACTIVITIES 5
Procurement 6
Technology Development 6
Human Resource Management (HRM) 7
Firm Infrastructure 7
INTEGRATION OF BUSINESS VALUE ADDING ACTIVITIES 8
CONCLUSION 10
REFERENCES 10


Introduction
Nowadays, companies are all under the pressure of furious competition. Especially when businesses are all want to go to world wide now. The competition is even more intensive. Because of this, so they should have their own competitive advantages to sustain an effective position in the global market place to survive in such a tough environment.

To obtain competitive advantages for better positioning result, I think the Porter¡¦s generic value chain can explained this. As value chain is basis on adding value throughout the whole process of delivering a product from supplier to end user. So in this essay, I will talk about the value chain and those value adding activities and how these activities co-ordinate for better business positions.

The Value Chain
Porter¡¦s generic value chain (showed in Figure 1) was created by M. E. Porter in his book, Competitive Advantage (1980). This value chain includes many different activities which create and build value in an organisation. They culminate in the total value delivered by an organisation. The organisation is split into 'primary activities' and 'support activities.'

From the value chain model, to obtain competitive advantages through the five basic business activities (i.e. inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and customer service), companies should try all their best through every single support activities. For example, they can be Firm infrastructure, Human Resource Management, Technology Development, and Procurement of Resources. These business activates are called ¡¥support activities¡¦.

Figure 1: The Value Chain

The Value adding...