Reconfiguring the higher education value chain

Abstract

Forces of demand and supply are changing the dynamics of the higher education market. Transformation of institutions
 of higher learning into competitive enterprise is underway. Higher education institutions are seemingly under intense
 pressure to create value and focus their efforts and scarce funds on activities that drive up value for their respective
 customers and other stakeholders. Porter’s generic ‘value chain’ model for creating value requires that the activities
 of an organization be segregated in to discrete components for value chain analysis to be performed. Recent trends
 in higher education make such segregation possible. Therefore, it is proposed that the academic process can be
 unbundled into discrete components which have well developed measures. A reconfigured value chain for higher
 education, with its own value drivers and critical internal linkages is also proposed in this paper.