Corporate Strategy: Vertical Integration and Diversification
What Is Corporate Strategy?
Corporate strategy
Corporate strategy is the way a company creates value through the configuration and coordination of its multi-market activities
Quest for competitive advantage when competing in multiple industries
Example: Jeffrey Immelt’ s initiative in clean-tech and health care industries
Corporate strategy concerns the scope of the firm
Industry value chain
Products and services
Geography
Transaction Cost Economics and Scope of the Firm
Transaction cost economics
Explains and predicts the scope of the firm
“Market vs. firms” have differential costs
Transaction costs
Costs associated with economic exchanges
Either in the firm OR in the markets
Ex: negotiating and enforcing contracts
Administrative costs
Costs pertaining to organizing an exchange within a hierarchy
Ex: recruiting & training employees
Firms vs. Markets: Make or Buy
Should a firm do things in-house (to make)? Or obtain externally (to buy)?
If Cin-house < Cmarket, then the firm should vertically integrate Ex: Microsoft hires programmers to write code in-house rather than contracting out Firms and markets have distinct advantages and disadvantages (see Exhibit 8.2) Firms vs. Markets: Make or Buy? Disadvantage of make in-house Principal -agent problem owner = principal, manager = agent Agent pursues his/her own interests Disadvantage of buy from markets Search cost Opportunism Incomplete contacting Enforce legal contacts Information asymmetries One party is more informed than others Akerlof - Lemons problem for used cars Receiving Noble prize in Economics Types of Vertical Integration Full vertical integration Ex: Weyerhaeuser Owns forests, mills, and distribution to retailers Backward vertical integration Ex: HTC' s backward integration into design of phones Forward vertical integration Ex: HTC' s forward integration into sales & branding Not all industry value chain stages are equally profitable Zara -primarily designs in-house & partners for speedy new fashions delivered to stores Benefits of Vertical Integration Benefits of vertical integration Market power Entry barriers Down-stream price maintenance Up-stream power over prices Securing critical supplies Lowering costs (efficiency) Improving quality Facilitating scheduling and planning Facilitating investments in specialized assets Ex: HTC started as OEM & expanded to fully integrated Benefits of Vertical Integration Specialized assets Assets that have significantly more value in their intended use than in their next best use Types of specialized assets Site specificity Co-located such as coal plant and electric utility Physical asset specificity Bottling machinery Human asset specificity Mastering procedures of a particular organization Risks of Vertical Integration Increasing costs Internal suppliers lose incentives to compete Reducing quality Single captured customer can slow experience effects Reducing flexibility Slow to respond to changes in technology or demand Increasing the potential for legal repercussions FTC carefully reviewed Pepsi plans to buy bottlers Alternatives to Vertical Integration Taper integration Backward integrated but also relies on outside market firms for supplies OR Forward integrated but also relies on outside market firms for some of its distribution Strategic outsourcing Moving value chain activities outside the firm's boundaries Example: EDS and PeopleSoft provide HR services to many firms that choose to outsource it. Corporate Diversification: Expanding Beyond a Single Market Degrees of diversification Range of products and services a firm should offer Ex: PepsiCo also owns Lay's & Quaker Oats. Diversification strategies: Product diversification Active in several different product categories Geographic diversification Active in several different countries Product -market diversification Active in a range of both product and countries Motivations For Diversification Value Enhancing Motives: Increase market power Multi-point competition R&D and new product development Developing New Competencies (Stretching) Transferring Core Competencies (Leveraging) Utilizing excess capacity (e.g., in distribution) Economies of Scope Leveraging Brand-Name (e.g., Haagen-Dazs to chocolate candy) Leveraging Core Competencies for Corporate Diversification Core competence Unique skills and strengths Allows firms to increase the value of product/service Lowers the cost Examples: Wal-mart -global supply chain Infosys -low-cost global delivery system The core competence -market matrix Provides guidance to executives on how to diversify in order to achieve continued growth Other Motivations For Diversification Motivations that are Value neutral : Diversification motivated by poor economic performance in current businesses. Motivations that Devaluate : Agency problem Managerial capitalism ( empire building ) Maximize management compensation Sales Growth maximization Professor William Baumol Diversification Issue #1: When there is a reduction in managerial (employment) risk, then there is upside and downside effects for stockholders: On the upside, managers will be more willing to learn firm-specific skills that will improve the productivity and long-run success of the company (to the benefit of stockholders). On the downside, top-level managers may have the economic incentive to diversify to a point that is detrimental to stockholders. Diversification Issue #2: There may be no economic value to stockholders in diversification moves since stockholders are free to diversify by holding a portfolio of stocks. No one has shown that investors pay a premium for diversified firms -- in fact, discounts are common. A classic example is Kaiser Industries that was dissolved as a holding company because its diversification apparently subtracted from its economic value. Kaiser Industries main assets: (1) Kaiser Steel; (2) Kaiser Aluminum; and (3) Kaiser Cement were independent companies and the stock of each were publicly traded. Kaiser Industries was selling at a discount which vanished when Kaiser Industries revealed its plan to sell its holdings. Corporate Diversification Internal capital markets Source of value creation in a diversification strategy Allows conglomerate to do a more efficient job of allocating capital Coordination cost A function of number, size, and types of businesses linked to one another Influence cost Political maneuvering by managers to influence capital and resource allocation Bandwagon effects Firms copying moves of industry rivals Sustainable Competitive Advantage Trying to gain sustainable competitive advantage via mergers and acquisitions puts us right up against the efficient market wall: If an industry is generally known to be highly profitable, there will be many firms bidding on the assets already in the market. Generally the discounted value of future cash flows will be impounded in the price that the acquirer pays. Thus, the acquirer is expected to make only a competitive rate of return on investment. Sustainable Competitive Advantage And the situation may actually be worse, given the phenomenon of the winner' s curse. The most optimistic bidder usually over-estimates the true value of the firm: Quaker Oats, in late 1994, purchased Snapple Beverage Company for $1.7 billion. Many analysts calculated that Quaker Oats paid about $1 billion too much for Snapple. In 1997, Quaker Oats sold Snapple for $300 million. Sustainable Competitive Advantage Under what scenarios can the bidder do well? Luck Asymmetric Information This eliminates the competitive bidding premise implicit in the efficient market hypothesis Specific-synergies (co-specialized assets) between the bidder and the target. Once again this eliminates the competitive bidding premise of the efficient market hypothesis.