Domain 1 · Business

The value chain first

Business

← 1. Business Domain

The architecture’s attention starts with the value chain: the primary activities that create and deliver value to the customer, and the support activities that sustain them.[1] The initiatives that move the needle are the ones that touch a link of that chain. Before approving one, ask which link it falls on and how much value it moves there; if it falls on none, it can usually wait.[2]

Porter placed technology as one support activity among others,[1] although he and Millar already observed that information permeates every activity of the chain.[3] With AI and agents, ILEA takes the next step: Information Technology is no longer one more support area but the meta-support that enables and amplifies every primary and support activity.[2] As Satya Nadella put it, every business is becoming a software business.[4]

Figure 1 · Value chainOpen full size ↗
Generic value chain: suppliers feed five primary activities that flow to the customer; four support activities below; Information Technology in the middle as the meta-support that reaches every activity.

A value chain describes the activities of the organization as a whole;[1] a value stream describes the end-to-end steps that deliver a specific outcome to a stakeholder.[5][6] ILEA uses both: the chain to decide where to focus, the streams to redesign how value flows.

References

  1. Porter, M. E. (1985). Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. Free Press.
  2. Peschard, M. (2026). Chapter 2, “Transformación Digital Inteligente,” in GOCHY® Consulting Consortium, GALACRÁCKTICO® El Ejecutivo de 2040: Pensar Futuro. Decidir Hoy.
  3. Porter, M. E., & Millar, V. E. (1985). How Information Gives You Competitive Advantage. Harvard Business Review, 63(4), 149–160.
  4. Wainewright, P. (2015, March 16). Microsoft CEO to business: your future as a SaaS provider. Diginomica (report of Satya Nadella’s keynote at Microsoft Convergence 2015, Atlanta). https://diginomica.com/2015/03/16/microsoft-ceo-business-future-saas-provider/
  5. Womack, J. P., & Jones, D. T. (1996). Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation. Simon & Schuster.
  6. Business Architecture Guild. A Guide to the Business Architecture Body of Knowledge (BIZBOK® Guide). https://www.businessarchitectureguild.org