Vertical Integration Essay

330 Words2 Pages
Vertical integration and diversification are two strategies, which if intended to only capture revenue or margins, rarely work . Since they are different strategies, they cannot be compared directly to each other, so there is no single right answers to this question. For vertical integration, I disagree with the statement that an erroneous “go” is worse than a mistaken “no-go”, but for diversification I agree. In order to make a right vertical integration decision, the activity or asset that wants to be produced in-house must have a strategic value to the firm and the firm has to have relative competence compared with the best supplier. We can contrast these two requirements for vertical integration using Arauco. On one hand, Arauco decided to vertically integrate the forest business into its operations. It needed to have control of its primary raw material, wood. Arauco created a very specific and knowledgeable team to take care of this strategic asset. Besides having control of the asset, it increased its competitive advantage. On the other hand, Arauco outsourced its trucking system. Obviously this was not a strategic activity for the business and there were several companies that could provide the service. Integrating this activity into its operations, would have probably cost Arauco a lot in terms of time and money, and supposing it did not have any relative competence compared to other suppliers, its competitive advantage could have been deteriorated, but the overall result would not have been worse than not integrating the forest business. It is true that nonstrategic activities performed in-house are dead weight when the organization competes with more focused firms , but for Arauco losing or not having control over its most strategic asset would represent losing part or the whole business due to the long replacing time of the resource under certain
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