Flanking Around Entrenched Giants

“Ontario and Quebec, he would have had to take the offensive against Greyhound, but he realized the costs of doing so would consume all he had laboriously accumulated since 1950. So he performed a flank¬ ing manoeuvre — not only on Greyhound, but on the entire business community — by diversifying, buying Gelco and through it Imperial Life Insurance. In this way, Desmarais, the boss of Quebec’s trans¬ portation business, became a new, small challenger on the Quebec corporate scene.”

“When buying small bus companies in Quebec and Ontario, Des¬ marais was the guerrilla, making small gains, avoiding direct con¬ frontation with big players in the bus business like Voyageur (until he bought it), Trailways, or Greyhound. He was also dealing with smaller companies and was closer to the actual day-to-day operations of his core business.”