Competitive Strategies Adopted to Enhance Performance by Manufacturers of Hair Products in Nairobi County

Abstract

As the level of competition intensifies, many business units continue to seek profitable ways in which to differentiate themselves from competitors and the small enterprises are not exceptional. This is because the ability of firms to survive in the business environment is dependent upon their selection and implementation of a competitive strategy that differentiates the firm from competitors. Hence, all small and medium enterprises should continuously monitor and adapt to the environmental change through employment of various strategies to survive in the industry. The research objective was to establish the competitive strategies adopted by manufacturers of hair products in Nairobi County and its effect on the performance of the firms. The research adopted a descriptive research design whereby ten of the hair product manufacturing firms in Nairobi were surveyed. Data was analyzed using statistical package for social sciences based on the questionnaires. In particular mean scores, standard deviations, percentages and frequency distribution was used to summarize the response and results were presented in tables. The findings of the study were that the competitive strategies employed by the hair product firms were found to be delivery and distribution strategy, pricing, cost leadership, quality of product and the differentiation strategy. The findings also revealed that the utilization of internal resources by a firm, using a broad category of product range was found to be an effective strategy that a firm can utilize in staying competitive. Organizations were able to achieve competitive advantage as a result of pursuing pricing strategy and that the differentiation strategy among the firms was found to increase the customer market share due to realization of a wide customer base. In conclusion, sustainable competitiveness of a firm was found to be crucial to any business and therefore the use of the various strategies by the firms to deal with threats resulting from entry by competitors, power of substitute products, bargaining power of buyers and suppliers and the competition from existing competitors indicates the firms’ willingness to ensure that they protect their business territory