In 1985, Harvard professor Michael Porter introduced the value chain, a strategy tool that provides a model for "systematically examining all the activities a firm performs and how they interact" (Porter, 1985). The value chain [1] looks at primarily inwardly focused core activities from which companies traditionally derive value (McPhee & Wheeler, 2006). Within a company they describe the various value-added stages from purchasing materials to distributing, selling, and servicing the final product.