Tesco's Defensive Strategy

From Sun Tzu’s Art of War, “those who are not able to win must defend” which means defend yourself when you cannot defeat the enemy and wait for a good time to attack back the enemy when you can. Sometimes a good defense, but also a kind of attack, when you can protect yourself for a long time, you can also deplete the enemy 's resources. Thus, they are capable both of protecting themselves and of gaining a complete victory.
Company’s Practices
One of the listed company using the defensive strategy which is Tesco. Tesco was the market leader in general merchandising when Wal-Mart began to move in, Tesco responded by lowering the price on many items, to attract their customers with lower prices, while simultaneously improving the personalization

Defensive marketing strategies refer to the activities of a market leader to defend its profitability, market share, product positioning, and mind share against a new competitor. If not undertaken, customers will leave the established business in favor of the competitor and will let the competitor displace the market leader and rise to the top. Tesco must be used different defensive strategies and depend on the nature of the competitor’s attack. If the competitor’s product is low price, this strategy will be a focus on the price-sensitive customer. If the new product has a specific feature that attracts customers, a repositioning strategy might be used. The importance thing is to identify the competitor’s strengths first, which customers those powers are resonating with, and respond to that challenge. However, Tesco has to decide the intensity of competition. If the company which is a close competitor is really advance and soon to take over your market share, then Tesco need to start apply this defensive marketing strategy. The threats will depends from competitors are changing technology, competitor shifting competitive benefit, deregulations, or patent right expiration.

In terms of advantages, it gives the company an opportunity to improve the value of the products and services, while emphasizing the benefits of the brand and depreciate the equity of the company’s main competitors. A fairly simple form of defense is to attack and criticize a competing product by importance all the problems of a competing entry, an established player can decrease trial rates for the new entry. Also, as it is seen as a long-term strategy, it takes the load of feeling threaten all the time and it gives an opportunity to engage both old and new