Today we visited several companies, including Vassiliko Cement Works and VTTI. Vassiliko Cement Works, which is in the business of cement making, can be described as a a vertically integrated company. A business being vertically integrated is one that owns much of its supply chain, from material sources even all the way to retail. Vassiliko does exactly this, as we learned today. It starts off with their ownership over several raw material locations, which are 5 different quarries that they mine out of with their own capital. After that, they take those raw materials to what could be referred to as the midstream part of the process. They have their very own crusher, pre-blending silo, and burners. All of these continue to bring the raw materials towards the goal of becoming a merchandisable product, now technically operating between 2 different channel members in the supply chain. After that, they use a debaler and have their own storage silos for clinker, which covers a different piece of the process. A company that isn’t vertically integrated most likely wouldn’t have all of these different parts under their ownership, but Vassiliko manages to make it work. After that, the now slightly transformed materials go to their very own cement mills, and then are stored in concrete cement silos. This begins to move them towards the retail portion of the supply chain, far from the initial raw material portion. They proceed to sell to the local market in bulk and bags and also export from Vassiliko Port, which is usually considered one of the last pieces of the supply chain. All of this together helps them to maximize their efficiency with economies of scale rather than relying on other parties during the process, making them a strong vertically integrated company. The visit all together was really interesting, I especially liked that we got to wear the hardhats and vests.