Vertical Integration is Back!

Google’s behemoth $12.5 Billion acquisition of Motorola’s phone business set a salvo across the bow in technology circles. Google’s largest acquisition raises the stakes in the quest for platform dominance. The trend towards vertical integration is clear, as Coke and Pepsi buy up their bottlers, and manufacturers such as General Motors and Boeing eat up suppliers.

Consider the plight of HP, who has no software dancing partner in the world of mobile computing and announced last week of their exit from the desktop business. Investors penalized the company (who bought competitor Compaq a decade ago) severely, erasing $12 Billion in market value with a matter of days. [i]

And then there is e-textbook publisher Kno, the VC backed darling of Silicon Valley, who recently shelved plans to create a tablet for the education market after realizing that they did not have the chops to compete on a global scale with tablet manufacturers. The company moved towards an App for iPad only to have their margins raided by Apple (who earns a 30% royalty). [ii] While Kno has enormous upside, it is unlikely to realize its vast potential unless it owns or is owned by a distribution partner.

Today’s turf wars are not with a single competitor, but with their entire distribution platforms (as in the case with mobile devices). So the consequences of globalization persist; the large get larger and the small find the right alliance or face considerable competitive disadvantage. Vertical integration provides a recipe for greater control of cycle time and quality and a significant cost advantage. At a time when margins are slimming, companies are looking to participate both up and down stream.

It appears that the swell of distribution channels has made distribution even more important, so those who can find unique methods of delivery are creating a first to market advantage, such as Amazon has with books. As private equity investors look for deal flow, and shrewd entrepreneurs look for bargain basement acquisitions, they should look not only at competition, but for suppliers or customers that present control and cost advantage throughout the entire supply chain.

With so much cash on the sideline, some sectors may be ripe for another round of consolidation. The choice many businesses face today is will they be the consolidator, or the consolidated?

Learn more about Marc at www.optimizeinc.net

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