Strategic Market Positioning Practices By Commercial Banks In Kenya

Abstract

The research study was carried out to determine the competitive and collaborative positioning strategies adopted by the commercial banks in the Kenyan market. The study targeted all the 44 commercial banks but response was received from 37 commercial banks.

All commercial banks in Kenya had their head offices located either within Nairobi city centre or its outskirts; therefore data collection was done within Nairobi city. Two research assistants were hired to assist in data collection where one was provided with a list of banks within Nairobi city centre and the other one in the outskirts. The questionnaires were delivered to all the commercial banks specifically to either marketing managers or finance managers through personal delivery by the research assistants of which some were referred to public relations officers and business development officers later. A few questionnaires were received within three days; personal telephone calls were made to the individual respondents as a follow up after which the bulk of them were received in the third week. The questionnaires were checked for completeness and relevance before being coded for data entry into SPSS. Data analysis was done by SPSS and presented through frequency tables, mean, variance and standard deviation.

It was found out that most commercial banks were more familiar with the competitive strategies like cost leadership and differentiation than collaborative strategies such as mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures. Various factors including competitor reaction, attitude towards risk and timing were considered during positioning process. Products with high growth rate in the market were regarded more highly in allocation of resources subject to business strength. Several benefits were obtained from strategic positioning and among them were increased customer loyalty, increased business opportunities and increased sales but competition amongst the commercial banks came out as the most challenging factor to achieving a sustainable competitive advantage.