Relationship marketing strategy as a competitive advantage in the mobile telephony industry in Kenya
Abstract
The way of doing business has changed rapidly in the Kenyan business environment and
world all over. Competition has become so stiff for a business without appropriate
strategies cannot survive. Much of the cut-throat competition is being experienced in the
service sector. One of the rapid growths in Kenya has been experience in the mobile
telephony industry. Price wars and confrontational marketing strategies has been the rule
of the day in the industry. However, a shift in marketing strategies has been noted to have
taken place in many service providing firms whereby organizations are shifting from
transactional marketing strategies to relationship marketing strategies in order to retain
and maintain their customers. It is from the view that this study was carried out with an
objective of establishing the relationship marketing strategies that mobile telephony
companies are currently employing in gaining competitive advantage. All the mobile
service providing firms were targeted for the study. However, only 75% of the targeted
firms participated in the study. The percentage was found to be suitable for the researcher
to make conclusions from the findings of the study. A number of statistical tools were
used to collect the data an analyze it. A structured questionnaire was used and
administered through “drop and pick technique”. Tables, parentage, mean scores,
frequencies and standard deviations were used to analyze the data and present the same.
In general, the firms were found to be employing several relationship marketing
strategies in a bid to gain competitive advantage. Most of the strategies found to be
currently employed by the firms were customer focused. Though the extent to which the
strategies were being employed by the firms was examined, it was evident that the
variation were too minimal and therefore they can be said to be employing several
relationship marketing strategies in a bid to gain competitive advantage and survive in the
market place. Understanding the customer preferences and providing value to the
customer is inevitable in this day and age of increased competitiveness. The firms should
therefore prioritize and re-focus their efforts in building and maintaining strong
relationships with their customers. Further, it is fair enough for the Government through
the Communication commission of Kenya come up with a policy to govern the firm’s
practices.
Citation
MBA ThesisSponsorhip
University of NairobiPublisher
School of Business, University of Nairobi