roduct which is larger than the sum of costs incurred by all these contributors. The final price charged by the organisation is determined through either cost-based or value-based pricing, which determines the size of the margin. Porter further defines a value system to be a collection of value chains of independent players who supply each other with valuable products. These value chains where several orga- nisations combine to deliver a value to the customer, are also known as supply chains. An Technology, Business and Policy Firm infrastructure Human resource management Technology development Procurement Primary activities Figure 2.10 Porter's generic value chain Primary Supplier producer Channel Buyer Figure 2.11 A multiple player value chain example, shown in Figure 2.11, includes the primary producer, supplier, firm, retail channel, and the buyer's value chains. Again each link in the chain adds a value and charges a commen- surate price. Many products have parallel value chain components. A final product depends on services provided by different vendors. An example of video content delivery on a mobile device is shown in Figure 2.12. Here a broadband telecom network operator value chain is supple- mented by a video content provision value chain. These two entities work together to provide the combined video-on-demand service to an end-user. Such arrangements between different industry players often exist in telecommunications where one value chain works to provide the infrastructure and another value chain works to provide the content that flows over that infrastructure. In Figure 2.12 an independent value chain may be defined for devices and equipment necessary (e.g. televisions) that facilitate service provision to an end-user. Note that there may be formal or informal linkages between several players (dotted lines) in the business diagram which can lead to policy issues further discussed below. Pricing In general the price of a product (goods or a service) is determined from the dynamics of supply and de