Primary activities of Saltbrae Coffee Roasters, a fictional wholesale roaster
Value chain slide for a small batch coffee roaster
A value chain slide breaks a business into the primary activities that turn inputs into something a customer pays for, so a team can see where its advantage and its costs sit. This one shows Saltbrae Coffee Roasters, a fictional wholesale roaster, from green bean sourcing to barista support.
What is on the slide
- Title and framing line
- Value Chain. Saltbrae Coffee Roasters, from green bean to the cafe counter, FY2026.
- Inbound logistics and operations
- Green bean sourcing: six farms, 84 tonnes a year, cupped and graded on arrival. Small batch roasting: two 15 kg roasters, five days a week, every batch profiled and cupped.
- Outbound logistics and marketing
- Roasted to door: own vans to 140 cafes within 48 hours, online orders ship next day. Wholesale first: two account managers, wholesale 68% of revenue.
- Service
- Barista support: free barista training and a 24 hour machine repair line.
When this is the right slide
Pick this slide when a strategy or investor audience needs to see the whole business as five primary activities, each with one fact, so it can decide where the advantage and the cost really sit.
What to swap it for
Grouping: SIPOC 5 Column Process Map. Use the SIPOC layout when the job is to scope one process, its suppliers, inputs, outputs and customers, rather than map the whole business.
What this slide shows
The title reads Value Chain, and the framing line names Saltbrae Coffee Roasters, from green bean to the cafe counter, FY2026. Five equal coloured cards run left to right, each with an icon, the activity name, a caption and one or two sentences. Inbound Logistics, green bean sourcing: direct contracts with six farms land 84 tonnes a year, cupped and graded on arrival. Operations, small batch roasting: two 15 kg roasters run five days a week. Outbound Logistics, roasted to door: own vans reach 140 wholesale cafes within 48 hours. Marketing and Sales, wholesale first: two account managers, wholesale 68% of revenue. Service, barista support: free training and a 24 hour machine repair line. The five cards sit at the same height, with the icon, activity name and caption stacked in the same order on each. That consistency lets the audience compare across the row: the eye moves from sourcing to service and can see which activity carries the most specific claim, here the 48 hour delivery promise.
When this is the right slide
Use a value chain slide in a strategy review, an investor deck or an operations plan, when the audience needs to see the whole business as a sequence of activities and decide where to invest or cut. It is the wrong slide for scoping a single process, which the SIPOC example does with suppliers, inputs and customers, and the wrong slide for showing a timeline or plan. It also leaves margin unstated, so follow it with a slide that says which activities earn money and which cost it, or say so out loud while the cards are on screen. It is also a strong slide for a new leadership team or a board that has not worked inside the business, because it explains in one view what the company actually does each day. A lender or buyer reviewing a coffee roaster would want to see the farm contracts, the delivery radius and the share of wholesale revenue in exactly this form.
How to adapt it
First, highlight one or two cards in a stronger colour when the talk is about where the advantage sits, and leave the others muted. Second, replace the sentence on each card with a cost share, for example operations 31% of cost, when the slide is for a cost review. Third, rename the activities for a service business, such as intake, consultation, treatment, billing and follow up for a clinic, while keeping five cards in a left to right order. If support activities matter, add a second slide in the same style rather than squeezing a second row onto this one. When the value chain is used to choose investments, rank the five cards by how hard each activity would be for a competitor to copy, and say the ranking aloud. For Saltbrae the farm contracts and the delivery promise rank highest, while the account managers rank lowest. That ranking is usually the most useful sentence in the whole discussion.
What makes this slide work
Every card carries a hard number
84 tonnes of green coffee from six farms, two 15 kg roasters, 140 cafes served within 48 hours, wholesale at 68% of revenue, a 24 hour repair line. Each activity is pinned to a fact, so the slide describes this roaster and could not be pasted into another company's deck.
Captions name the advantage
Each card has a short caption above its sentence: green bean sourcing, small batch roasting, roasted to door, wholesale first, barista support. Read alone, the five captions summarise the strategy in about twelve words, which is what most of the audience will remember.
The order follows the bean
The cards run left to right from farm contracts to roasting, delivery, selling and service, the path a bag of coffee actually takes. Keeping Porter's order means anyone who knows the model reads it instantly, and anyone who does not can still follow the journey.
Questions people ask
What are the five primary activities on a value chain slide?
Inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and service, in that order, which is how Michael Porter set them out. They follow the product from raw input to after the sale. A service business can rename them, for example intake, delivery and follow up, as long as the order still runs from input to customer.
Should the value chain slide show support activities too?
Only if the talk is about them. Support activities such as HR, technology and procurement sit above the primary row in the full model. For most strategy decks the primary row is enough on one slide, and support activities get their own slide if one of them, say the roasting technology, is a real source of advantage.
Where does margin go on a value chain slide?
In Porter's model, margin sits at the end of the chain, after service, because it is what is left once every activity is paid for. This layout has no margin card, so say it in the talk or the next slide: which activity earns the margin and which one costs more than it returns.
How much text should each value chain card hold?
One caption and one or two sentences, around 25 words. The caption names the focus, such as small batch roasting, and the sentence gives one concrete fact, such as two 15 kg roasters running five days a week. Long descriptions turn the slide into a reading task and hide the comparison between activities.
Can a value chain slide compare two businesses?
Not on one slide without losing clarity. Build one slide per business with the same five activities in the same order, then show them one after the other, or follow with a comparison table. The audience can then see where a competitor invests in delivery while this roaster invests in barista support.
How do I present a value chain slide to investors?
Point to the one or two activities where the business does something rivals cannot easily copy, and say why. Here that is direct contracts with six farms and delivery within 48 hours of roasting. Skim the others. Investors want to know where the advantage sits, not a tour of every function.
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