dc.description.abstract | The objective of the study was to investigate the strategies developed and adopted by
hire-purchase companies and in particular, Amedo Centres Kenya Limited to gain
sustainable competitive advantage. This study was based on the premise that
Organizations today face a turbulent and fast changing business environment and
since they are environmental dependent, they need to understand and make sense of
the turbulent environment. An organisation needs to outsmart its competitors in such
an environment in order to generate competitive advantage. When a company adopts
strategies that cannot be easily copied by its competitors, competitive advantage is
prolonged hence becoming sustainable. To achieve the objective of the study, a
content analysis of the relevant documents concerning strategy at Amedo Centres
Kenya Limited were reviewed. Interviews with executive staff were carried out to get
an in-depth view of strategies adopted to gain sustainable competitive advantage at
the company. The study established that the company had responded to environmental
challenges by adopting a series of strategies meant to generate and sustain competitive
advantage. The study found that various strategies had been adopted include
diversification, re-aligning the organisation structure to market conditions by
restructuring the organisation, collaborating with foreign suppliers to save on research
and development costs and also to enable the company to adapt fast to changing
customer needs and preferences, human resource management strategy, cost
reduction, market penetration and market development, and involvement of the
company in corporate social responsibility. Of utmost importance, the company had
realized that to achieve its objectives, all employees need to be well equipped with
knowledge and skills. To reflect the importance the company has placed on
developing and sustaining competitive advantage, a strategy committee has been set
up by the Board of Directors to monitor the development and implementation of
strategies | en_US |