Your best friend is considering opening Emerald City, a canine day- and long-term care business that also performs grooming and minor veterinary services. She wants to know what is meant by hit-and-run (or guerrilla warfare) and preemptive strike offensive strategies. Explain to your friend what hit-and-run and preemptive strike offensive strategies are and then give her the circumstances in which either of these strategies will likely be most effective.
What will be an ideal response?
Hit-and-run (also known as guerrilla) offensives are considered to be strategic moves incorporating the element of surprise. These surprise offensives are particularly well suited to small or medium-sized challengers like Emerald City that have neither the resources nor the market visibility to mount a full-fledged attack on industry leaders.
A preemptive strike by a challenger like Emerald City means moving first (and quickly) to secure advantageous competitive assets that rivals cannot readily match or duplicate. Examples of preemptive moves include: (1) securing the best distributors in a particular geographic region or country; (2) moving to obtain the most favorable site at a new interchange or intersection, near to airports and rail transportation hubs, and so on; and (3) tying up the most reliable, high-quality pet grooming and veterinary practitioners via exclusive partnerships, long-term contracts, or even acquisition.
The best targets for offensive attacks like hit-and-run or preemptive strike include: (1) market leaders that are vulnerable; (2) runner-up firms that possess weaknesses in areas where the challenger is strong; (3) struggling enterprises that are on the verge of going under; and (4) small local and regional firms that possess limited capabilities and resources - the latter of which is probably typical in the canine care industry. To be successful, neither offensive move has to totally block rivals from following or copying; it merely needs to provide the challenger - Emerald City - with a prime position that is not easily circumvented.
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