Managers’ Perception Of Customer Value Strategy And Competitive Advantage At Investment And Mortgages Bank Limited, Kenya

Abstract

Organizations seeking to gain competitive advantage in their industries make choice of strategies that can guarantee such advantage. Customer value strategy is among the strategies that organizations chose. However, how the managers perceive the strategy’s potential of creating competitive advantage varies among a cross-section of managers. This perception can have implications on how the managers carry out the strategy because different factors influence such perceived link. In its quest for competitive advantage in Kenya’s banking industry, the Investment and Mortgage (I&M) Bank, Kenya Ltd pursues customer value strategy among other strategies. On this backdrop, this study was designed with the objective of determining the perceived link between customer value strategy and competitive advantage at I&M Bank Ltd as well as the factors that may influence the perception among managers of such link. Using a cross-sectional descriptive survey, primary data was collected from 75 managers of I&M Bank using a structured questionnaire and analyzed through descriptive statistics and one sample t-test at 95% confidence level. The findings of the study show that 24 out of the 29 descriptive statements presented to the respondents linking customer value strategy and competitive advantage has a mean score of 3.00 and above with majority of the statements have a mean score of above 4.00. The statements also had high t-values and demonstrable statistical significance (p≤0.05) meaning that the variation between the reported means and the normal distribution mean (3) was significant. This depicts an overall concurrence among respondents that customer value strategy is closely related to competitive advantage of I&M Bank Ltd. The results further show that organizational culture, (Mean ≥3.00), is the only factor that influences the perception of the managers of the link between customer value strategy and competitive advantage. Other factors reported means lower than 3 with negative t-values that were statically significant (p≤0.05). The study draws a conclusion that I&M’s competitive advantage is linked to the adoption of customer value strategy and that organizational culture plays a pivotal role in influencing manager’s view of such a link. The findings of this study, to a large extent, render support for Dynamic Capability and Resource Based theories as well as the Theory of Planned Behavior. The results of the study prove that to attain competitive advantage through implementation of customer value strategy, a business should have the ability to identify its uniqueness from that of its competitors. Customer value strategy is thus essential in value communication and establishment of customer value. It encompasses the concept in the psyche of organizations which permeates all organizational components and thus has an influence on how a manager perceived customer value and competitive advantage. Organizations can, therefore, rely on the results of this study to be customer-centric in their strategic behavior through an enriched organizational culture. Based on the study’s limitations, further studies can be undertaken in different contexts as well as adopting different conceptualizations and methodologies.