The demand chain is therefore not something to be added to the end of a “super supply chain” – it is a dynamic in its own right. These notions of demand and supply fundamentally overlap and interact and should be seen as constituent, but independent elements of what has been termed the firm’s value chain. It is also worth noting that having both competent and workable supply and demand chains are competitive necessities. The best factory in the world is useless if it is producing the wrong product. The best innovation is worthless if it cannot be implemented. Competitive advantage can however be spawned by excellence in either supply chain processes or demand chain activities, or of course preferably both. For the academic or practitioner this notion of an independent, cross-disciplinary demand chain interacting with a firm’s supply chain as a value catalysis is important for a number of reasons: