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by dredmorbius 9 days ago
"Divisions" and "product lines" were the terms used at the beginning of mass production. One of the innovations of Alfred P. Sloan at General Motors was the idea of a division-based corporation, or the M-form company, contrasting with the earlier U-form (unitary) business.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-divisional_form>

Outside the US you'll find Chaebol (Korea) and Keiretsu / Zaibatsu (Japan) models.