Competitive strategies applied by telkom Kenya and their perceived effectiveness

Abstract

The success and sustainability of any organization in a competitive environment is determined by its choice of strategy. This case study was an attempt to establish the competitive strategies applied by Telkom Kenya and their perceived effectiveness. Telkom Kenya was established as a telecommunication operator under the Companies Act in April 1999. This was after KP & TC was split into three legal entities namely Telkom Kenya ltd (TKL), postal corporation of Kenya (posta) and the communications commission of Kenya (CCK), Telkom Kenya was issued with licenses in all areas that it is currently operating and that includes providing interconnection facilities to other duly licensed operators. A case study method was used since it is a sound basis for gathering insight information from the management of the organization on the competitive strategies the organization applied and their perceived effectiveness. The data for the study was primary data collected from ten senior and middle level management of TKL of which the data collected was mainly qualitative in nature and was analysed using conceptual content analysis, as this method is most suitable for analysis of qualitative data. Interview guides were issued to the targeted population and the response rate was 100% One of the research objectives of this study was to establish the response strategies adopted by TKL to its competitive environment and was found that diversification strategy and marketing and advertising was given much prominence with some respondents mentioning technological advancement as another tool used as a strategy by TKL. Another research objective was to establish the perceived effectiveness of the competitive strategies adopted by TKL and this was found that TKL used the strategies that were most effective as perceived by the respondents. The respondents mentioned diversification and marketing and advertising to have been the most effective although they mentioned marketing and advertising as not being fully utilized by TKL due to financial constraints as budgets allocated to it were not satisfactory.