Application of Generic Strategies Adopted by Supermarkets in Bungoma Town, Kenya to Achieve Competitive Advantage

Abstract

Strategy is an indispensable element for all competent business plans. An organization identifies its commercial niche, studies and understands about its customer. Porter affirms that there exists three principal business organizational strategies namely; differentiation strategy, cost leadership strategy and focus/niche strategy and an organization achieves better by identifying one strategy in which to concentrate on. In Kenya, retail businesses have realized overwhelming growth and therefore, purpose of this study is to establish application of generic strategies adopted by supermarkets in Bungoma town, Kenya to achieve competitive advantage. This study was directed by the following objective: to determine the application of generic strategies adopted by supermarkets in Bungoma town, Kenya to achieve competitive advantage. The study applied a descriptive survey design. The population of this study was 20 supermarkets lincensed by Bungoma County. No sampling was done in the survey. Data collection was done through questionnaire which was administered to the senior managers of the supermarkets. Data was analyzed by using Excel worksheet. This research relied on descriptive statistics such as percentage, mean scores and standard deviation. The study found out that the supermarkets apply differentiation strategies for instance innovation and markets strategies in a quest to sustain competition in the market that is only to a little extent. It was also confirmed that geographic areas, consumer groups or buyer characteristic features and service line form focus strategies adopted by the supermarkets influences output performance of supermarkets to a little extent. The research also established that it was a bit complex to arrive at long-term strategies as a result of the market changes and the case that costs of implementing some strategies was an expensive affair. The study recommends; that supermarkets should mix retail market trend analysis and therefore investigate on strategic challenges. Secondly, supermarkets should adopt finest practices for instance to have an effective and visible communication measures directed by a professional and experienced personnel who makes ensure that information on the strategy implementation is well communicated in good time across the organization. The study was restricted to the stated classification of strategies as a result of time limitation constraints. Nevertheless, there exists alternate and unique strategies that could be adopted by the firm so as to retain competitive advantage; this has not been studied in this research. The research is exclusive to supermarkets in Bungoma County, Kenya and therefore the findings cannot be universalized to entire retail industry. This is because of diversity in company formation system, capabilities and structures. Therefore, there is a call for further study to be conducted to establish competitive strategies being adopted by supermarkets all over across the country.