Arctic States' Strategies - How to Defend the Arctic Market

To defend a market, the acting firms need defence strategies. The eight Arctic States have all published their own national strategic document for the Arctic region. In the Strategies they describe how they will act in this Arctic market. The Arctic is an area undergoing a change. With the last decades of melting ices as a result of the increased global warming, the Arctic is a more available region to explore and exploit for stakeholders. Defence strategies are used by firms to strengthen and defend their positions and interests in a market. In this study the theory and strategies that are used are collected from Ehrmann et al. They are the deterrence strategy, shakeout strategy and “take the money and run” strategy. To make the analysis of the Arctic States use of defence strategies more comprehensible the study is divided into three areas: environment, economy and security. The result shows that according to the conditions, such as the predicted lifecycle of products, age of market, number of competitors and the phase they are in (pre- or post-entry phase) the most common is the deterrence strategy followed by the shakeout strategy. Despite its northerly position the Arctic is a hot topic