This essay will explain the value chain analysis as a tool that is used by management to establish what they can do and how they can do it to add more value to the customer experience. Our case study is going to be Bakers Inn a subsidiary of Innscor Africa Limited.
Bakers Inn opened its first retail outlet in Harare, Zimbabwe, and later expanded a highly successful footprint across Africa, more specifically in Zimbabwe, Kenya and Zambia. The brand has consistently updated its offering to suit the changing needs of its customers, and now offers a selection of bread including white, brown, whole-wheat, seed, and low GI. Irresistible treats on offer include chocolate and cream doughnuts, cakes, muffins, as well as various meat pies, buns and rolls.
The idea of value chain analysis was first suggested by Michael Porter (1985) when he was illustrating how the activities within an organisation add value to the products and services that are produced by the organisation. Porter was of the opinion that if an organisation wants to gain any substantial competitive advantage all the activities that the organisation perform that leads up to the delivery of its product or service must be run at an optimal level.
Kaplinksy and Morris (2000) describes the value chain as an analytical tool that helps understand the way in which firms (large or small) are integrated and linked in the value chain. The value chain describes a full range of activities which are required to bring a product or service from the time the product is only an idea to the time when it is produced, processed, delivered to final consumers and disposed of after use.
John Shank and V Govindarajan (1993) state that “the value chain for any firm is the valu-creating activities all the way from basic raw material sources from