How Diversified Companies Work (2024)

What Is a Diversified Company?

A diversified company is a type of company that has multiple unrelated businesses or products. Unrelated businesses are those that:

  • Require unique management expertise
  • Have different end customers
  • Produce different products or provide different services

One of the benefits of being a diversified company is that it buffers a businessfrom dramatic fluctuations in any one industry sector. However, this model is also less likely to enable stockholders to realize significant gains or losses because it is not singularly focused on one business.

How a Diversified Company Works

Companies may become diversified by entering into new businesses on its own by merging with another company or by acquiring a company operating in another field or service sector. One of the challenges facing diversified companies is the need to maintain a strong strategic focus to produce solid financial returns for shareholders instead of diluting corporate value through ill-conceived acquisitions or expansions.

Conglomerates

One common form of a diversified company is the conglomerate. Conglomeratesare large companies that are made up of independent entities that operate in multiple industries. Many conglomerates are multinationals and multi-industry corporations.

Every one of a conglomerate's subsidiary businesses runs independently of the other business divisions, but the subsidiaries' management report to the senior management of the parent company.

Taking part in many different businesses help a conglomerate's parent company cut back the risks from being in a single market. Doing so also helps the parent lower costs and use fewer resources. But there are times when a company grows too big that it loses efficiency. In order to deal with this, the conglomerate may divest.

Key Takeaways

  • A diversified company owns or operates in several unrelated business segments.
  • Companies may become diversified by entering into new businesses on its own by merging with another company or by acquiring a company operating in another field or service sector.
  • Conglomerates are one common form of a diversified company.
  • Diversified companies come with their own specific benefits and limitations.

Diversified Companies in Practice

Some of the historically best-knowndiversified companies are General Electric, 3M, Sara Lee, and Motorola. European diversified companies include Siemens and Bayer, while diversified Asian companies include Hitachi, Toshiba, and Sanyo Electric.

The general idea behind "diversifying" is the spread or smoothly of financial, operational, or geographic risk concentrations. Financial markets generally focus on two sources of risk: unique or firm-specific risk and the other, systemic or market risk. According to capital market theory, only market risk is rewarded, because a rational investor always has the opportunity to diversify, thus eliminating unique or idiosyncratic risk.

Knowing investors vary capital costs based on risk-return profiles, businesses often use a strategy to diversify themselves from within. Critics can point to entities growing for the sake of growth under the guise of diversification. Bigger businesses generally pay executives more, enjoy more press, and can fall prey to entrenchment and status quo. Whereas one observer might see diversification; another may see bloat.

How Diversified Companies Work (2024)

FAQs

What are the 4 methods of diversification? ›

Alternatively, corporate-level diversification occurs if you penetrate a new market.
  • Growth Strategies. Diversification is one of four different growth strategies popularised by Igor Ansoff. ...
  • Concentric Diversification. ...
  • Horizontal Diversification. ...
  • Conglomerate Diversification.
12 Mar 2021

What are the three 3 factors to consider in diversification? ›

There are several factors that influence diversification. These include financial health, attractiveness of the industry and/or market, availability of workforce resources and government regulatory policies.

What are the 3 diversification strategies? ›

There are three types of diversification techniques:
  • Concentric diversification. Concentric diversification involves adding similar products or services to the existing business. ...
  • Horizontal diversification. ...
  • Conglomerate diversification.
29 Nov 2022

What is the best diversification strategy? ›

Consider Index or Bond Funds

Investing in securities that track various indexes makes a wonderful long-term diversification investment for your portfolio. By adding some fixed-income solutions, you are further hedging your portfolio against market volatility and uncertainty.

What is the best example of diversification? ›

8.3 Diversification
  • Related Diversification —Diversifying into business lines in the same industry; Volkswagen acquiring Audi is an example.
  • Unrelated Diversification —Diversifying into new industries, such as Amazon entering the grocery store business with its purchase of Whole Foods.

Why would a company diversify? ›

Diversification is a risk-reduction strategy used by businesses to help expand into new markets and industries and achieve greater profitability. This can be attained by diversifying new products and services in new markets, targeting new customers and increasing profitability.

When should a company diversify? ›

First and foremost, companies diversify to achieve greater profitability. Diversification is used by businesses to help them expand into markets and industries that they haven't currently explored. This is achieved by adding new products, services, or features that will appeal to the customers in these new markets.

What are the principles of diversification? ›

The idea behind diversification is to minimize (or even eliminate) risk within a portfolio. However, there are certain types of risks you can diversify away, and there are certain types of risks that exist regardless of how you diversify. These types of risks are called unsystematic risk and systematic risk.

What is an example of a diversified company? ›

Some of the historically best-known diversified companies are General Electric, 3M, Sara Lee, and Motorola. European diversified companies include Siemens and Bayer, while diversified Asian companies include Hitachi, Toshiba, and Sanyo Electric.

What are 3 benefits of diversification? ›

What are the Benefits of diversification?
  • Reduces the impact of market volatility. ...
  • Reduces the time spent in monitoring the portfolio. ...
  • Helps seek advantage of different investment instruments. ...
  • Helps achieve long-term investment plans. ...
  • Helps avail of benefit of compounding of interest. ...
  • Helps keep the capital safe.

What is diversification strategy with example? ›

With diversification, a business can successfully cross-sell their products. For example, an automobile company famous for its car deals can also introduce engine oil or other car parts to an old market or cross-sell new products.

What is Amazon's diversification strategy? ›

Diversification strategy is the practice of not putting all your eggs in one basket. It's a tried and true method that spans many industries. For brands selling on Amazon through third-party (or first-party) sellers, diversification strategy simply means selling through multiple sellers instead of a single seller.

How do you implement diversification? ›

The strategy can be implemented by identifying the product, coming up with the product, drafting a strategy, managing finances, and introducing the product. The three main types of diversification strategies include concentric, horizontal, and conglomerate strategies.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of diversification? ›

Advantages and Disadvantages of Portfolio Diversification
AdvantagesDisadvantages
1. Risk management2. Align with your goals3. Growth opportunity1. Increases chances of mistakes2. Rules differ for each asset3. Tax implications & cost of investment4. Caps growth
13 Dec 2021

Does Warren Buffett Like diversification? ›

Buffett on diversification

Buffett has described diversification as "protection against ignorance." And he's not wrong. Diversification is a risk-management strategy. You give yourself exposure to different stocks -- or sectors, asset classes, and geographies -- to ensure that no single one of them can bankrupt you.

Is Apple a diversified company? ›

The company has since diversified into tablets, watches, smart-audio, and even electric vehicles. Diversification strategy saved Apple from failure, and helped them grow into one of the world's biggest corporations.

What is a good diversification ratio? ›

A classic diversified portfolio consists of a mix of approximately 60% stocks and 40% bonds. A more conservative portfolio would reverse those percentages. Investors may also consider diversifying by including other asset classes, such as futures, real estate or forex investments.

Is Nike a diversified company? ›

Today we're a diversified and complex global organization: We sell our products in 170 countries. We have more than 30,000 worldwide employees. We have a dozen brands that serve more than 30 major sports and consumer lifestyles.

Is Coca Cola a diversified company? ›

The company has a strong portfolio of products, strong brand recognition and a loyal customer base. In addition, Coca-Cola has a diversified business model that includes beverages to keep up with market trends. As a result, I believe Coca-Cola is well-positioned to continue its success in the years to come.

What is diversification strategy? ›

A diversification strategy is a corporate strategy to increase growth by changing or expanding products a company manufactures or offers for sale.

What is the biggest benefit of diversification? ›

Diversification means lowering your risk by spreading money across and within different asset classes, such as stocks, bonds and cash. It's one of the best ways to weather market ups and downs and maintain the potential for growth.

Is diversification a good strategy? ›

In general, diversifying with similar products or services and selling them to a familiar customer base is less risky than some other business growth strategies, such as creating a product for a completely new market. Diversification can be a great way to maintain business stability.

Why is diversification a good idea? ›

Diversification is a technique that reduces risk by allocating investments among various financial instruments, industries and other categories. It aims to maximize return by investing in different areas that should each react differently to changes in market conditions.

What is the main objective of diversification? ›

Diversification is a strategy that aims to mitigate risk and maximize returns by allocating investment funds across different vehicles, industries, companies, and other categories.

What is diversification in simple words? ›

Diversification is the act of investing in a variety of different industries, areas, and financial instruments, in order to reduce the risk that all the investments will drop in price at the same time.

What is a good diversified portfolio? ›

A diversified portfolio should have a broad mix of investments. For years, many financial advisors recommended building a 60/40 portfolio, allocating 60% of capital to stocks and 40% to fixed-income investments such as bonds. Meanwhile, others have argued for more stock exposure, especially for younger investors.

Is Amazon a diversified firm? ›

Amazon has been strategic in diversifying its business, but the company's beginnings in e-commerce have always played a crucial role. In the early days, as Amazon's marketplace began to grow, the company's need for centralized infrastructure services like computing, storage, and databases became the foundation for AWS.

Is Netflix a diversified company? ›

Netflix is considered as a global business invested in strategies of diversification, localisation and personalisation in light of several discourses about the streaming service.

Is Tesla a diversified company? ›

The diversification of Tesla goes far beyond additional products and services, but is a result of a vertically integrated company and product line that allows quick adjustment in your product footprint. Agility and flexibility are not just words but allow diversification when others are unable to.

What is the golden rule of investment? ›

The greater the potential returns, the higher the level of risk. Make sure you understand the risks and are willing and able to accept them. Different investments have different levels of risk.

What are the challenges of diversification? ›

One of the great challenges that companies face is the decision about whether to diversify their lines of business. This is a key decision, since it involves increasing revenues by gaining access to more markets. However, it also entails the liability of having to face new competitors and adopt new processes.

How does diversification create value? ›

However, diversifying by acquiring a company in a related product market can enable a company to reduce its technological, production, or marketing risks. If these reduced business risks can be translated into a less variable income stream for the company, value is created.

What are the 3 C's at Amazon? ›

The “3 C's” Rule for Creating Winning Amazon Listings
  • Keep Your Content Clear, Concise & Catchy: The “3 C's” Rule for Creating Winning Amazon Listings. ...
  • Why? ...
  • Headline.
  • “3 C's” headline example: ...
  • Clear – Be as specific as possible regarding the product you are offering.

How can Adidas diversify? ›

Adidas can diversify its activities into various segments where the company has to either go with the existing products into new markets or with new products into new markets.

What are the 3 principles held by the company of Amazon? ›

According to founder and chief executive officer Jeff Bezos, who is now worth $141 billion and is the wealthiest person in the world, three principles drive Amazon's success: customer obsession, a willingness to invent and accept failure, and patience to have a long-term focus.

Why do most diversification efforts fail? ›

“One of the main reasons that diversification fails is because businesses do not have the right strategy in place,” Shipilov said. “They must think carefully about what distinct resources or capabilities they can move between different markets to give them a competitive advantage.

What is a danger of over diversification? ›

The biggest risk of over-diversification is that it reduces a portfolio's returns without meaningfully reducing its risk. Each new investment added to a portfolio lowers its overall risk profile. Simultaneously, these incremental additions also reduce the portfolio's expected return.

Do diversified companies perform better than undiversified companies? ›

(2011) ascertained that undiversified companies outperform highly diversified ones in terms of return on assets and profit margin, moderately diversified organizations were found to outperform highly diversified entitiesin terms of return on equity, return on asset and profit margin.

What are the 4 types of business strategies? ›

What are the Types of Business Strategy?
  • Organizational (Corporate) Strategy.
  • Business (Competitive) Strategy.
  • Functional Strategy.
  • Operating Strategy.
7 Apr 2022

What are the strategies used by companies? ›

10 Examples of effective business strategies
  • Technological advantage. ...
  • Improve customer retention. ...
  • Improve customer service. ...
  • Cross-selling products. ...
  • Increase sales from new products. ...
  • Innovation and pushing boundaries. ...
  • Product diversity. ...
  • Price point strategising.
8 Feb 2022

What are the 5 strategies? ›

Mintzberg developed his 5 Ps of Strategy as five different definitions of (or approaches to) developing strategy. He first wrote about the 5 Ps of Strategy in 1987. Each of the 5 Ps is a different approach to strategy. They are Plan, Ploy, Pattern, Position, and Perspective.

What are the 4 C's strategy? ›

The 4Cs (Clarity, Credibility, Consistency, Competitiveness) is most often used in marketing communications and was created by David Jobber and John Fahy in their book 'Foundations of Marketing' (2009).

What are the 7 elements of strategy? ›

Here are the 7 basic elements of a strategic plan: vision, mission, SWOT analysis, core values, goals, objectives, and action plans.

What is the 4 pillars of corporate strategy? ›

The four most widely accepted key components of corporate strategy are visioning, objective setting, resource allocation, and prioritization.

What are the 3 basic corporate strategies? ›

Corporate leaders typically pursue one of three corporate-level strategies for leading their companies: stability strategies, growth strategies, or retrenchment strategies.

What is successful differentiation strategy? ›

A differentiation strategy is an approach businesses develop by providing customers with something unique, different and distinct from items their competitors may offer in the marketplace. The main objective of implementing a differentiation strategy is to increase competitive advantage.

What are the 3 competitive strategies? ›

According to Porter's Generic Strategies model, there are three basic strategic options available to organizations for gaining competitive advantage. These are: Cost Leadership, Differentiation and Focus.

What are the 7 P's of marketing? ›

The 7Ps of marketing are – product, pricing, place, promotion, physical evidence, people, and processes. The 7 Ps make up the necessary marketing mix that a business must have to advertise a product or service.

What is 7 P's marketing mix? ›

It involves the 7Ps; Product, Price, Place and Promotion (McCarthy, 1960) and an additional three elements that help us meet the challenges of marketing services, People, Process and Physical Evidence (Booms & Bitner, 1982).

What are the five P's? ›

The 5 areas you need to make decisions about are: PRODUCT, PRICE, PROMOTION, PLACE AND PEOPLE. Although the 5 Ps are somewhat controllable, they are always subject to your internal and external marketing environments.

What are the 5 P's of management? ›

The 5 P's of management provide such a framework. The 5 Ps are: 1) Plan, 2) Process, 3) People, 4) Possessions, and 5) Profits. Planning is the key to the success of an organization.

Which is the best business model? ›

Let's take a look.
  • The servitisation (subscription) business. ...
  • The platform-based business. ...
  • The social, authentic business. ...
  • The employee-centric business. ...
  • The partner-centric business. ...
  • The customer value-obsessed business. ...
  • The constant-innovation business. ...
  • The data-driven business.

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