Sustainable Competitive Advantage at Deacons Kenya
Abstract
Organizations being environmental dependent have to constantly adopt activities and
internal configurations to reflect the new external realities since failure to do so, may
put future success of the organization in jeopardy (Aosa, 1998). The study aimed at
establishing how Deacons Kenya was achieving sustainable competitive advantage.
To achieve this, two research objectives were used to determine the basis of achieving
sustainable competitive advantage at Deacons Kenya and to analyze the factors that
influence Deacon's Sustainable Competitive Advantage. The research was conducted
through a case study; primary data was collected using an interview guide. The
interview guide is developed in accordance with the objective. Content analysis was
performed in the information obtained to study the existing information in order to
determine factors that explain a certain phenomena. The study established that most
of Deacons outlets are positioned in strategic locations, their shops are very spacious
and clothes and a variety of other items are excellently displayed. The findings also
revealed that when focusing on market, they begin by selecting a market niche where
buyers have distinctive preferences. Deacons Kenya Limited has adopted a low cost
leader's basis for competitive advantage in order to lower overall costs than
competitors. The study concludes that that pricing strategy was used to a great extent
adopting a cost conscious organizational culture, intolerance of waste, intensive
screening of budgets and broad employee participation in cost control efforts. The
study also concludes that differentiation strategy approach was used to focus on
developing a reputation for superior quality products. From the findings and
conclusions, the study recommends that in order to keep up with competition, firms
must constantly search for a competitive strategy that will ensure competitive
advantage in the long term and yield market leadership and that the management
should engage various strategies to survive in a dynamic and highly competitive
business environment. The research study was faced by resistance from target
respondents fearing that the information requested would be used for other purposes
apart from academic purposes The study recommends that further research should be
done on other organizations in the public sector so as to get comprehensive
information on how the other players in the sector have responded towards
competition in their quest to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.
Citation
Master Of Business AdministrationPublisher
University of Nairobi