Primary and Support Activities

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Q3. Describe the difference primary and support activities using value chain analysis. Because of the limitations of the SWOT analysis approach, managers now can use other techniques to help them assess their company’s internal resources in a more realistic, objective and systematic way. Value chain analysis is one of the effective approaches that many managers choose when doing the internal analysis projects. The value chain analysis approach attempts to understand how a business creates customer value by examining the contributions of different activities within a business to that value. Value chain analysis technique looks at the business as a process, or a chain of activities. There are two broad categories of activities in a value chain framework of every company: primary activities and support activities. They are different in many aspects. While primary activities involved in a physical creation of a product, marketing and transfer to the buyer, and after-sale support; support activities involved more in assisting the firm as the whole by providing infrastructure or inputs that allow the primary activities to take place on an ongoing basis. Primary activities include inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sale, and service; which have a strong relation with obtaining inputs from suppliers, creating products and selling products to the customers. Support activities include general administration, human resources management, research, technology and systems development, and procurement; which prepare for and help the primary activities to perform well. Both of these two activities are critical to the operation of a firm. If we apply value chain analysis to examine the internal resources of the International University, we can easily differentiate these two primary activities and support activities. Shortly, primary activities of the

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