Verticals

Vertical market
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
A vertical market (often referred to simply as a "vertical") is a group of similar businesses and customers that engage in trade based on specific and specialized needs. Often, participants in a vertical market are very limited to a subset of a larger industry (a niche market). An example of this sort of market is the market for point-of-sale terminals, which are often designed specifically for similar customers and are not available for purchase to the general public. Vertical marketing can be witnessed at trade shows.

Markets
The activities of participants within any given vertical market are typically similar in that they aim at solving the same or similar problems. These markets are typically competitive, due to the overlapping focuses of the products and services that are provided to the customers.

The single defining characteristic of the participants in a vertical market is competition within a well-defined segment.

Horizontal market participants often attempt to meet enough of the different needs of vertical markets to gain a presence in the vertical market. Their similar products/services tend to be less of a fit but also less expensive than specialized, vertical participant solutions.

Vertical market software is software aimed at addressing the needs of any given business within a discernible vertical market. An example could be software that manages services in hotels - amenities solutions.

Comparison with horizontal markets
A vertical market is a market which meets the needs of a particular industry: for example, a piece of equipment used only by semiconductor manufacturers. It is also known as a niche market.[1]

A horizontal market is a market which meets a given need of a wide variety of industries, rather than a specific one: for example, word processing software.[2] On occasion a horizontal market can be highly specialized at the same time, for instance consider the market for converting mainframe databases developed with the tools of a particular company. The market for such a database conversion service might involve many vertical markets (aerospace, manufacturing, banking, etc) but nevertheless be labelled "niche" if the database technology is technically obsolete and no longer mainstream.

Examples
Some common examples of vertical markets:

Automotive
Banking
Consumer
Education
Energy
Oil and Gas
Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG)
Financial (Finance)
Food and beverage
Government
Healthcare
Insurance
Manufacturing
Media
Online
Real estate
Religion
Retail
Technology
Telecommunications
Transportation (Travel)

Recommendation for Mike Giotis

Saudi Aramco developed a highly successful learning environment between the late 90’s because it was decentralized. While work on acquiring an LMS and populating it with useful courses went on in Dhahran, the production of customized courses was centered in Ras Tanura. It was there that Mike was a guiding light, originally making outstanding courses using Macromedia Author Ware (remember that?) and later guiding the prolific production of courses made with the Articulate Suite. Mike was a great innovator, introducing e-tests, embedded videos and e-glossaries (anything else?). He also had the foresight to hire other outstanding professional (Steve Doodson and Mike Reakes) and oversaw a great team. During this period I was based in Dhahran and observed how the fruitful dialog between the Ras Tanura and Dhahran groups significantly advanced the learning environment in the company. Any organization that needs a knowledgeable and driven learning professional would find it really difficult to do better than selecting Mike.