| dc.description.abstract | The state of competition in an industry depends on the five basic forces which are threats to new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threats of substitute products and services and rivalry among existing firms. This study determines the strategic responses employed by small and medium size restaurants in Nairobi to competitive environment. The research design was a survey. The population was all the licensed small and medium size restaurants in Nairobi. Simple stratified sampling was used to pick the restaurants. In this study the random sizes within each subgroup were 60 large, 115 medium and 136 small size restaurants. Drop and pick questionnaires were used to collect the data. The statistical methods used for data analysis were descriptive statistics.
From the research findings, majority of the SME restaurants have been in business for 1- 2 years and have less than 20 employees. Managers and owners were the major players directly involved in decision making. Most of them had tertially education. There was also a good representation of them having secondary education. From the mean scores, the competitive forces were rated average except the competitive force of new restaurants opening up that provide similar services that was rated low. Most of the strategic responses were rated average by the respondents.
It is worth noting that provision of unique technology, focus on certain geographic locations and serving high priced markets were the only strategic responses rated low. Focus on reputation was the only strategic that was rated very important by the respondents In conclusion, it is evident that restaurants experience various competitive forces and employ various strategic responses which majority viewed as having average effect on their business. However from the standard deviation results indicate their opinions varied greatly and as a result there was no general consensus among the respondents. | en_US |
