| dc.description.abstract | The firms in Kenyan beer industry compete in marketing various brands of locally produced beer. Beer market growth is flat due to economic hardships that have continued to affect beer industry, coupled with high taxes, stiff competition from other beverage sub sectors and low consumer spending. There is no known study in Kenya which has ever been done on the Competitive strategies adopted by beer brewing firms in Kenya. This study sought to fill this gap in knowledge by answering the question: what are the competitive challenges facing beer brewing firms? The proposed study adopted a cross sectional survey research design. The target population for the study was the managerial staff working in marketing departments in beer firms. This study collected primary data using semi-structured questionnaires. The closed ended questions were used to collect quantitative data while the open ended will used to collect the qualitative data. The filed questionnaires was checked for completeness, edited and coded to facilitate entry into a computer for analysis. The entered data was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as the mean and standard deviation. This was achieved by the use of a computer software tool to generate quantitative reports through tabulations, percentages, and measures of central tendency. The study found that heavy distributional costs, increasing advertising cost, many brands in the market, heavy costs of production, low market penetration, old machinery of production, low profits, fear of change, fact that their brands are unknown, lowering of prices by other firms, heavy legislation, low market share, low sales were challenges that beer companies were facing in marketing their products. The study also found that the beer firms were using cost leadership, offensive strategies, defensive strategies and collusive strategies as competitive strategies to a great extent. | en |
