Strategies Employed by Mount Kenya University to Achieve Competitive Advantage

Abstract

Organizations are open systems that interact with the environment. The organizations serve the environment, and they also depend on the environment. The environment provides the organization with resources, and opportunities needed for it produce goods and services. The organization in turn offers its goods, and services to the environment. The organization environment consists of the customers, the suppliers, the government and all other stakeholders that the organization interacts with. When the organization receives the right configuration of resources from the environment it can produce it can operate effectively, and produce efficiently. Therefore, the organization achieves competitive advantage. The organization needs to employ the right strategies in order to operate effectively, and to produce efficiently. Therefore, the organization scans the environment through, and analyses the competitive forces that are at work. This makes the organization to adopt the right strategies that are relevant to the prevailing competitive forces in the market. The objective of this study was to determine the strategies employed by Mount Kenya University to achieve competitive advantage. The primary data was collected using an interview guide, and the secondary data was gathered by reading the university’s publications. This study employed content analysis in the data analysis. The findings of the study show that MKU operates in a sector that is influenced by competitive forces. The competitive forces are the Porter’s five competitive forces that are: the degree of competition rivalry in the higher education sector, the threat of substitute products, the threat of new entrants, the bargaining power of suppliers and the bargaining power of buyers. MKU has employed various strategies to in response to these competitive forces in order to achieve competitive advantage. The strategies employed by MKU include: cost focus, cost leadership, differentiation focus, differentiation, innovation, excellent customer service, diversification, strategic alliances among other strategies. The findings of this study generated some recommendations to MKU. First, MKU should use its expertise to venture into viable businesses. These businesses will give more funds to MKU. Second, MKU should open more campuses to cater for the growing number of students. Third, MKU should involve all the staff in the strategic management process of the university. This is because the staff are human resources who work to steer the university forward