The Value chaIn Harvard’s Michael Porter has proposed the value chain as a tool for identifying ways to create more customer value.3 According to this model, every firm is a synthesis of activities performed to design, produce, market, deliver, and support its product. Nine strategically relevant activities—five primary and four support activities— create value and cost in a specific business. The primary activities are (1) inbound logistics, or bringing materials into the business; (2) operatio