Competitive Strategies Adopted by International Foreign Owned Banks to Gain Competitive Advantage in the Local Banking Industry. A Case Study of Standard Chartered Bank Kenya Limited

Abstract

Strategic planning is a process concerned with formulation and implementation of organization plans that seeks to exploit and create new and different opportunities by analyzing internal and external environment of the organization. The objective of this study was to assess competitive strategies adopted by international foreign owned banks to gain competitive advantage in the local banking industry. A case study of standard chartered bank (k).The study adopted a case study research design and data was collected through an interview guide from 30 senior managers of the company. The primary data on competitive strategies and business competitiveness at Standard charted bank was obtained through in-depth interview using interview guide. The data was analyzed using content analysis. The findings indicate that the major competitive strategies adopted by the bank included undertaking of market surveys to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the business; undertaking of competitor analysis to find out what competitors are doing in terms of technology, funding, new products, pricing, customer acquisition and marketing activities; SWOT analysis to helps top management at Standard charted bank to know how they are performing and how they can maximize on their strengths, improve on their weaknesses, exploit the opportunities and mitigate threats to the business; being the market leader in the implementation of corporate governance principles ,up-to-date customer relationship management, adoption of enterprise risk management, adoption latest technologies in banking, operational cost evaluations and effective stakeholder relationship management. From the findings, majority of the interviewees indicated that strategic decisions positively influence business competitiveness to a very great extent. The firm has, increased its market network to other regions in the country, enhanced quality of services compared to rivals in the industry, adopted effective strategic responses towards external and internal changes faced by the company and has experienced high customer satisfaction to a very great extent .This implies that high levels of performance may result in adoption of competitive strategies. The study found that the firms achieved competitive advantage over their rivals in the market; increased profitability, gained high returns due to effecting Competitive strategies and increased volume of revenues. The study concluded that strategy formulation and implementation influence organization performance positively to a great extent resulting to increased organization profitability, business turnover and volumes of sale. The study recommends that for organizations to perform effectively; clear strategies that guide its operations should be formulated and guidelines provided to all the concerned departments in order to eradicate occurrence of compromise. The study’s limitations included limited time set aside for the research and the limited scope of study.