Use of Porter’s (1985) Value Chain FrameworkPorter’s model of value chain is one of the best known and widely applied models of a company’s value-creation processes (Sanchez and Heene, 2004). According to Porter: “Competitive advantage cannot be understood by looking at a firm as a whole. It stems from the many discrete activities a firm performs in designing, producing, marketing, delivering and supporting its product. Each of these activities can contribute to a firm’s relative cost position and create a basis for differentiation” (Porter, 1985:33) Porter (1985), Besanko et al. (1996), and McGuffog & Wadsley (1999) identify that a company’s profitability is a function not only of industry conditions, but also of the amount of value it creates relative to its competitors. A firm can achieve competitive advantage if it posses ‘capabilities’ that allow it to create not only positive value but as well additional total value than its competitors (Porter, 1985; Hooley et al, 2004). By understanding why a company can create value and whether it can continue to it in the future is a necessary first step in diagnosing a firm’s potential for achieving a competitive advantage in the marketplace (Hitt et al, 2007; Spanos and Lioukas, 2001). Therefore, a firm must understand how its products serves customer needs better than potential substitutes; the technology of production, distribution and sales; and the business’s costs (Porter, 1985). <span>According to Hill & Jones (2001, 5th ed.) maintain that the term “value chain” refers to the concept that a company is s chain of activities for transforming inputs into outputs with purpose to deliver value to the customers. Pearson (1999) states that a competitive strategy is focused on the top-level strategic objective of a company with purpose to gain competitive advantage. Hence, if a company wishes to achieve a competitive strategy must encompass every aspect of the business so that every manager and employee knows the objectives of this strategy is and as a result every decision and action is consistent with it and serves to put in practice (Pearson, 1999). The value chain is therefore a logical way of looking the overall business activities with purpose to mobilise these various strategic impacts (Porter, 1984).</span> Porter (1985) introduced the concept of value chain as the basic tool for examining the activities a company performs and their interactions with a view to identifying the sources of sustainable competitive advantage. It separates the activities of a firm into a sequential stream of activities and is used to analyse and establish the importance of the different activities in delivering the final product/service, thereby facilitating the identification of core and non-core activities. <span>A simplistic view of this activity organisation and operation is given to the following figure. These activities in the value chain are core (primary) and supplementary (secondary or support) activities. Companies, primarily have to identify the core activities that would give them sustainable competitive advantage and then identify the assets and competencies needed to achieve this advantage. According to Sanchez and Heene (2004), the value chain activities are systematically interrelated and represent value creation. Therefore, a business gains competitive advantage by performing these activities either more cheaply than its competitors (low cost strategy), or in a unique way that creates superior customer value and commands a price premium (differentiation).</span>
Without a doubt, the economic crisis has changed the way consumers approach the market for goods and services. In this new era, austerity, discounts and the search in different channels of the best price / benefit ratio dominate.
Of course, technology and the Internet are the best allies of the consumer who wants to be informed: thanks to smartphones, bar scanners, social networks or websites that compare prices or offer discounts, we are the buyers with more prior information on what we want or need to acquire.
This company's behavior is unethical. In the globalized world, it is natural for transnational firms to direct their production structure to countries where labor is cheaper, as this makes their product more competitive in the international market. However, these firms must not take advantage of regulatory failures in the labor market in these countries to increase their profit. Every firm must be concerned and ensure that the physical integrity and health of employees who work on its plants is preserved, regardless of location. Thus, in order to act ethically, this firm should implement process improvements to minimize the exposure of employees to chemical agents and to inhibit the exploitation of the labor that occurs when employees work in excess and without being paid for overtime.
From the information, it can be inferred that it's an indication of the uncertainty that exists in the Vietnamese cultural model.
From the complete information, Vietnam has low points in the avoidance index. This implies that they're less associated with their cultural roots and don't have concern for hiring white people.
Some of the solutions that can be applied for training the workers include providing them with ethical and language-based training and also encourage a team culture.
According to Thomas Duening and Robert Hisrich book "Technology Entrepreneurship: Taking Innovation to the Marketplace", the direct purchase has some problems: long-term capital gain to the seller and double taxation. The bootstrap purchase eliminates those problems: the acquiring company can acquire a small amount of the firm, 20 or 30% in cash and the remaining with a long-term note.
