Vertical Integration

Vertical integration is a strategy wherein a firm acquires business operations within the same vertical production chain.

Vertical: like when Rockefeller acquired all of the processes to find, suck up, process, store, ship, and serve oil to thirsty consumers. Vertical integration involves each step of the production, distribution, and delivery business.

The opposite? Horizontal, i.e. wherein a company buys all of the competitors in a given discipline. Like...if you're a volume home builder and you monopolize all of the toilet/porcelain-making facilities in the world, you'll have integrated (and monopolized) horizontally. Your competitors will just have to tell their customers that they'll...have to hold it.