A vertical is a business area organized around a distinct market, region, product line, or domain of responsibility. In a large organization, verticals may own capabilities independently while sharing selected horizontal capabilities. section 6.3.6 section 9.2.5
Designing verticals means balancing local optimization against reuse and coordination. Key questions concern consistent user experience, prioritization across verticals, funding shared capabilities, dependency-driven cognitive load, and efficiency versus time-to-market. section 6.3.6
Fast-food regional markets
A global fast-food chain might organize around regional verticals such as the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden, and Japan. Each region could develop Loyalty and CRM independently, or use centralized horizontal capabilities shared across markets. section 6.3.6
BBC WebCore
BBC initially aligned high-level domains with independently grown services such as news, radio streaming, sports, weather, and education. WebCore later identified horizontal domains such as Articles, Search, and Topics so audience-facing verticals could reuse shared capabilities. section 9.2.5
Compare centralized and decentralized macrostructures when deciding which capabilities belong inside verticals or in shared horizontals. section 6.3.6
