ANTICIPATING COMPETITIVE REACTION: MARKETING STRATEGY IN THE 1980s

The main focus of marketing strategists is increasingly aimed toward coping with competition, despite continuing challenges in markets themselves. Competition is a key factor that marketing strategists face. Competitors' market moves demand timely and creative reaction. To get usable advance estimates of such probable moves, it is essential to have a system for careful monitoring of competitors. All proactive strategic actions should anticipate the market reactions that competitors are likely to make to them. Unfortunately, ways to cope with actual and potential competition, however, still receive only brief treatment in the pertinent literature. This article examines the competitive features of modern market environments and considers how marketing strategists attempt to cope with them.