Proceedings of The International Conference on Applied Research in Business, Management and Economics
Year: 2019
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/bmeconf.2019.12.900
The Importance of Applying the Value Chain Analysis in the Higher Education System
Livia Anastasiu
ABSTRACT:
Education is the core of any developed society. Higher education graduates have to be prepared to face the challenges in a dynamic global market. Their competences should meet the business demands; therefore the universities should adapt their curricula accordingly. The present paper analyses the activities from the Porter`s Value Chain in order to highlight those that may provide competitive advantage. The author analysed all the activities of the value chain, then adapted them to higher education system and found the activities that leads to competitive advantage. The findings support the idea that, even if universities are service providers in a globalized community, the value chain is a suitable tool for setting the organization`s strategy. By assessing each of the primary activities, the results of the research show that the most important ones are the teaching process (operations), and the graduates` competences (outbound logistics). The departments (infrastructure) and modern technologies that enable communication between the parties (universities, students, and companies) are the main support in achieving the strategic goals. The other activities are also important, but the ones mentioned above are considered to add the most value to the customers, in this case the future students and the business environment, which may decide that their actual employees will be better prepared in higher education institutions by professional teachers.
Keywords: strategy, value chain, higher education.