Porter's Value Chain Analysis

Apply Michael Porter's Value Chain framework to find where competitive advantage and margin are created — for an external company or one of the user's own software projects.

How to run an analysis

Follow these steps in order. Announce: "Using the Porter's Value Chain skill."

Step 1 — Identify the target

Determine what is being analyzed.

• User's own project: gather context from the repo and conversation (README, product docs, recent commits, known collaborators). Do not ask the user for facts you can read yourself.
• External company: ask the user for what they know. Do NOT fetch financials or invent figures — work only from provided/known information, and flag assumptions explicitly.

Step 2 — Pick the mode (ask up front)

Ask the user which lens to use:

• Classic — the literal nine Porter activities, force-fitting the target and marking any activity N/A where it does not apply.
• Software-adapted — Porter's structure translated for software/app/indie projects. Use the translation table in references/translation-table.md.

Do not assume — ask, even for an obviously-software target, because the user wanted to choose each time.

Step 3 — Map the activities into a matrix

Produce a Markdown table with one row per activity (primary first, then support), columns:

Fill every cell. Use "N/A — <reason>" rather than leaving blanks.

Step 4 — Render the value-chain diagram

Draw the classic shape inline as ASCII/Markdown: support activities as horizontal bands across the top, primary activities as the left-to-right arrow of boxes, and Margin on the right. Use this template, relabeling the primary boxes for Software-adapted mode:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Firm Infrastructure                                          │\
│ Human Resource Management                                    │ \
│ Technology Development                                       │  >  M
│ Procurement                                                  │ /   A
├──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────────┬─────────────┤/    R
│ Inbound  │Operations│ Outbound │  Marketing   │  Service    │  >  G
│Logistics │          │ Logistics│   & Sales    │             │ /   I
└──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────────┴─────────────┘     N

Offer an HTML/SVG version only if the user asks.

Step 5 — Strategic synthesis

Identify the 2-3 activities that are the real source of, or biggest threat to, competitive advantage / margin. For each, give a one-line rationale and a concrete, prioritized next action. This is the payoff — never skip it.

Deliverable

By default, print matrix + diagram + synthesis in chat. Then offer to save a Markdown artifact, suggesting a consistent path like docs/strategy/<target>-value-chain.md. Save only if the user agrees.

Teaching mode

If the user is asking to learn the framework rather than analyze a specific target (e.g. "explain Porter's value chain", "what is the value chain"), skip the workflow above. Instead:

1. Explain primary vs. support activities and the concept of margin.
2. Walk one short worked example (pick a familiar company or, if the user has an active project, theirs) through 2-3 activities.
3. Offer to run a full analysis next.

Keep it concise — this is an explainer, not a full mapping.