 This level of organization to production, with one trading house (in effect, one company) controlling production, transportation, and sales, was unprecedented in Japan, and can easily been seen as the forerunner to the factory system, economic and industrial modernization, and the rise of the "zaibatsu" (Japanese monopolies).One of the key differences, organizationally, however, between the "ie" and the "zaibatsu" which would come later is that the "ie" always focused on producing and selling only one or two types of goods; so-called "horizontal "zaibatsu"" would seek to deal in many unrelated types of goods.For example, today, Mitsubishi is both an automobile company and a bank.