Leverage Growth as a Critical Strategy

Core Concepts of Strategy
Introduction
Health care organizations constantly leverage growth as a critical strategy. Growth is feasible since it enhances economies of scale, improves an entity’s reputation, facilitates entry into a new industry, creates synergies, augments market power, and secures higher remuneration and packages for the top management. By investing in innovative expansionary strategies, an organization could leverage new personnel, ideas, and cultural diversity to achieve competitiveness in the highly dynamic health care system landscape. An organization can implement expansion through vertical, diversified, and horizontal strategies. This report explains the differences between diversified, vertical, and horizontal expansion, identifies Inova Healthcare’s core business and notable diversified organizations, establishes that it applies related diversification, and explains how the hospital system’s strategy represents its mission and vision.
Differences Between Diversified, Vertical, and Horizontal Expansion
The differences between diversified, vertical, and horizontal expansion are anchored on its definitions. Vertical expansion, in health care contexts, happens when a health care organization acquires another organization either through backward expansion (as a source of supplies) or forward expansion (an organization that might buy from the entity). On the contrary, horizontal expansion happens when similar organizations are acquired or merged. In this scenario, an organization could grow by combining or taking over other entities providing comparatively related services or products. In diversified expansion, the organization acquires organizations operating in distinct business activities (Walston, 2018b). While vertically expanded organizations attempt to collaborate with their strategic partners by sharing products, raw materials, and distribution to enhance profits, horizontally expanded entities reduce vicious rivalry to ensure shared potential industry opportunities are pursued to create synergy amongst the market rivals (Yu et al., 2019). There is yet another distinct feature between vertical and horizontal expansion strategies. Regarding critical perspectives, the vertical expansion-driven high quality could provide complementary knowledge and information to attain organizational cooperation (Yu et al., 2019).
Inova Healthcare in Northern VA Core Business and Any Diversified Organizations
Inova’s mission is to offer world-class health care – every time, every touch – to diverse individuals and populations in every community they are privileged to serve. The health care system serves Northern Virginia (NoVa) with a comprehensive and integrated diversity of services and programs, providing a seamless and consistent Inova care system. The health care system maintains the Inova Eastern Region Development Plan tailored to achieve the rising health care expectations and needs of people living within Inova’s Eastern Region service area. The health care system has diversified organizations, including Inova Oakville at Potomac Yard, Inova Alexandria Hospital at Landmark, Inova Mount Vernon Hospital, and Inova Franconia-Springfield Hospital. Once these regional i...