Competing value chains

In market economies, however, companies are confronted with competition when selling to customers and they use the market competition when purchasing from suppliers. On the other hand, market constellations can change, when many customers compete for limited resources or raw materials provided by few large suppliers. In these situations, prices, values as well as ensured profitability within each company are decisive for the sustainable survival of the business. While the supply chain emphasizes the supply aspects including ensured supply and availability (Corsten 2001, p. 94), an essence of Porter s value chain underlining the value focus and the supply chain concept is required as basis for the study. 

The very simple 3-D-visualization of price simulation results for competing businesses can foster the understanding of value chain dynamics. Limit and target prices can be determined based on the simulation results. 

In terms of focussing on core competencies, manufacturers of functional chemicals will no longer produce all the chemicals of their system solutions themselves in the future, but they will have to reduce their value-chain instead and partly restrict themselves to formulating bought-in molecules in a product system for customers application. 

There should be no doubt that it is quite unrealistic to assume that CH302 and H02 radicals react solely with NO. Radical termination reactions must compete with chain propagation reactions lest the chain continues indefinitely. Termination reactions divert CH302 and H02 into other reaction channels, so that the yield of ozone does not attain maximum values. The principal termination reactions are... 

Rather than adhering to the traditional linear flow, the new digiteil economy wUl reward those that are flexible enough to use inputs from their partners regardless of where they are in the linear process of manufacturing. In fact, the linear value chain has become a veilue web where each and every economic entity is connected to everyone else and where they may often function in a parallel or overlapping fashion. Electronic commerce then becomes an essential business tool to survive and compete in the new economy. 

Logistics is a cross-cutting, multi-disciplinary function covering, according to the AFNOR reference model, no less than 25 trades and 600 activities spread along the value chain. It plays a primary role from day-to-day business to major corporate projects. Its field of operation has widened, its missions have diversified - becoming more complex than before - and its competencies have developed, just as the range of its methods has become more elaborate. This transformation has occurred over the last 15 years and has not yet ended. 

The modern value chain management model has remained demand chain customer focused. Slywotzky and Morrison (1997) presented the progression of the value chain model from its traditional form into amodern form. Their model is displayed in Figure 8. This model commenced with the customer, and linked the customer back to management core competencies. 

Value chain Market centric with a focus on doing what it takes to compete for customers... 

The biorefinery concept that has emerged is analogous to today s petroleum refineries. However, many current endeavors focus on single technologies and feedstock such as starch or vegetable oils that could compete with food or feed. We need to create flexible, zero-waste biorefineries that can accept a variety of low-value local feedstock. Biorefineries will then be able to compete with existing industries (Clark et al., 2012). Further down the value chain the development of green chemistry fills the gap between the sustainable resource and the product (Poliakoff and License, 2007). 

Cammett, M., 2006. Development and the changing dynamics of global production global value chains and local clusters in apparel manufacturing. Compet. Change 10, 23—48. 

To compete with the traditional fossil-based refineries, biorefineries have to exploit optimally raw materials firom plants and create multiple value chains. Therefore, the concept of a whole-plant biorefinery appears as a more convenient model. Despite the diversity of oil crops, such as soy, rapeseed, sunflower, and palm, the whole-plant biorefinery concept can be applied similarly to all of them. Differences can emerge due to the nature of the plant and the way to recover its seeds containing the vegetable oil. Palm trees, for instance, remain in the soil, and their fruits are harvested, where plants such as rapeseed or sunflower are cut every year. In both cases, the first step of the biorefinery process is to separate the oil-rich seeds firom the lignocellulosic fraction of the plant. 

Fig. 2.8 Assessing the company s competencies by means of Porter s value chain analysis...

Supply capability is reviewed in the advanced levels with respect to the firm s core competencies and its value chain partners, and decisions made as to which partner should perform which process steps. In the most advanced levels, flexible response systems that do not interfere with overall supply chain efficiency are created. There is much lower variability in the network as all parties work together through an online extranet to instantly review what is occurring and where changes must be made. Constraints in the system are eliminated or under control as the end-to-end partners link their ERP systems in order to make visible what is occurring across the full network. 

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