Management Lite & Ezy 16 – Competitive Strategies for Market Challenger

Strategic Objectives

• attack the market leader

• attack firms of its own size that are not doing the job and are underfinanced

• attack smaller local and regional firms

General Attack Strategies

• Frontal Attack. The attacker matches its opponent's product, advertising, price and distribution.

• Flank Attack. Target the enemy's weak spots.

• Encirclement Attack. It involves launching a grand offensive on several fronts.

• Bypass Attack. bypass the enemy and attack easier markets to broaden one's resource base. This strategy offers three lines of approach: diversifying into unrelated products, diversifying into new geographical markets, leapfrogging into new technologies to supplant existing products.

• Guerrilla Warfare. It consists of waging small, intermittent attacks to harass and demoralize the opponent and eventually secure permanent footholds.

Specific Attack Strategies

• price discount

• lower price goods

• value-priced goods and services

• prestige goods

• product proliferation

• product innovation

• improved services

• distribution innovation

• manufacturing-cost reduction

• intensive advertising promotion

Reference: Kotler & Keller, “Marketing Management”, 12^th edition