Competitive business strategies adopted by mobile service providers in Kenya: a case of Telkom Kenya

Abstract

The telecommunications industry in Kenya is volatil e and highly competitive, to survive in the industry, organizations have to adopt busine ss strategies that offer them competitive advantage over their rivals. This study looks into Telkom Kenya Ltd; one of the four telecommunication companies in Kenya and w ill seeks to determine the competitive business strategies the organization ha s adopted in order to create competitive advantage. A case study on Telkom Kenya Ltd was conducted with data collected through interview. Respondents of the int erviews were the top managers of Telkom Kenya responsible for establishing and imple mentation of strategy in the organization. Data analysis involved the identifica tion of specific wordings used by the respondents in the interviews; these words were the n used to make conclusions in the study. From the study, we find that Telkom Kenya de rives competitive advantage from internal resources that are both tangible and intan gible. The study also finds that competitive strategies employed by the organization include; Cost leadership, price leadership and outsourcing strategies. In conclusi on, the study recommends that Telkom Kenya divert the reliance of tangible internal reso urces as a source of establishing competitive advantage as they can easily be replica ted and substituted by competition. It also recommends the exploration of external factors to provide competitive advantage and the adaptation of strategies specifically geare d towards the increase of revenues and market share.