🧩 Frameworks

Value chain

Every step from raw material to happy customer.

The value chain lists the activities a company performs to deliver its product: sourcing, making, moving, selling and servicing.

Mapping it shows where cost piles up and where you could differentiate.

How to break it down

Value chain

Inbound

Operations

Outbound

Marketing & sales

Service

🧮 Example

A furniture brand finds 30% of cost sits in last-mile delivery → a regional warehouse network becomes the big lever.

🎯 Interview tip

Great for operations and cost-reduction cases — walk the chain step by step.

Used in

Learn next

Operations framework

Fixing a process: capacity, speed, quality, cost.

COGS (cost of goods sold)

The direct cost of making what you sold.

Economies of scale

Getting cheaper per unit as you get bigger.

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