A *Value Chain* can be defined as set of activities required to design, procure, produce, market, distribute, and service a product or service. It's a sequential set of primary and support activities that an enterprise performs to turn inputs into value-added outputs for its external customers as a part of a corporate strategy.
The "primary activities" include: inbound logistics, production, outbound logistics, sales and marketing, maintenance. The "support activities" include: administrative infrastructure management, human resources management, R&D, and procurement.
The value chain was described and popularized by Michael Porter in his 1985 best-seller: Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining SuperiorPerformance. Its ultimate goal of a value chain is to maximize value creation while minimizing costs. But to the contrary while adding value it adds unnecessary costs.
The new forces of digitalization, globalization and deregulation are destroying value chains of even superior companies. In industries as varied as banking, insurance and utilities, retail, education, competitive advantage is being wiped out as new competitors quickly produce new value chains that use a killer application of digital technology to radically alter the equation. Most often it is a start up or an organization from an entirely different industry that may destroy your value chain. These new entrants have even less of a vested interest in the old model and often can do much more damage much more quickly. Companies focused on competing in the current market often overlook these new players, dismissing them and the technology they employ as insignificant until it's too late to respond strategically.
To respond effectively, organizations must now consider scrapping rather than optimizing their value chains. They are pre-emptively destroying their own value chains. The new saying in the industry is *"Destroy or be destroyed."* These industries are now forming new relationships with customers and competitors by automating expensive processes or giving away proprietary tools others can use to evolve away from the industry entirely.
Let us take the example of *online education*. Online education is an extension of the traditional form of distance education. Typically it involves the use of the Internet to access learning materials; to interact with the content, instructor, and other learners; and to obtain support during the learning process, in order to acquire knowledge, to construct personal meaning, and to grow from the learning experience. The use of technology here has been embedded within a wider strategy for teaching, learning, and service that is responsive to the challenges of technological change. Many adult education and training providers are running to get on the online learning bandwagon because several global groups of institutions are collaborating to promote distance education in a big way. They are busy transforming existing courses and creating new ones for online delivery. The participation of single institutions and groups of institutions has resulted in increased opportunities for online learning all over the world. Institutions are trying new delivery and support strategies, and looking at competency-based credentialing systems and performance-based learning. Why pay for college and attend classes when you can do it in the comfort of your home or office for a much lesser price. Nowadays working people can still make use of online courses and don't need to break away from their job at the same time.
