inorganic growth – the growth of a company achieved by buying other businesses

(Pronounced in-or-gah-nik growth)

To remember what inorganic growth means use the following mnemonic:

The only difference between inorganic growth and organic growth is "IN".

If we think of IN as into buying other companies and interfering with the way they are run then the following statement makes sense:

Inorganic growth = Buying other companies to expand

Inorganic growth refers to a business that has achieved growth by buying another company instead of growing by opening new locations.

Many companies look for inorganic growth to acquire a competitor to increase market share and gain economies of scale.

Tesco’s supermarket in the early days of its growth purchased other supermarkets in the 1950s and 1960s this was an inorganic growth period.

Some companies have a mixture of organic and inorganic growth, such as Microsoft which expanded massively to become an organically grown giant. Microsoft then began buying other companies such as video game makers, software security companies and various other businesses in order to expand inorganically.