Strategic responses and organizational competitiveness: a case of Kcb Bank Group Ltd, Kenya
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Date
2018-02
Authors
Emirundu, Omukoba Danstan
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Kenyatta University
Abstract
The banking industry in Kenya is highly competitive with many players such that only
those banks that are able to rethink their strategies remain competitive and are able to
survive. The study set to establish how strategic responses affected organizational
competitiveness by examining the case of KCB Bank Group Ltd Kenya. Specifically, the
study focused on: determining the influence of training and development strategy on
organizational competitiveness at KCB Bank Group Ltd Kenya: establishing the
influence of expansion strategies on organizational competitiveness at KCB Bank Group
Ltd Kenya; and determining the influence of restructuring strategy on organizational
competitiveness at KCB Bank Group Ltd Kenya. The study was anchored on Michael
Porters 5 forces model on competitive advantage. The research employed a descriptive
research design on a target population of 609 employees at KCB bank group
headquarters. A sample size of 182 respondents was selected for the study. The study
used mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentages in the analysis. Multiple
regression analysis was used to estimate the changes in the dependent variable following
a unit change in each of the independent variables. The study found out that KCB has
invested a lot in training and development programs on the basis of the staff skills and
knowledge of workforce, expansion strategy was born with the need to survive in the
market place to enable them to outwit competition and developed new products so as to
serve a new customer niche and KCB had eliminated non-core business activities,
consolidate their business functions and re-organized their business processes so as to
gain competitiveness. The study concluded that employee training helped in building the
productive capability of staff through improving their level of commitment, competency,
technical capabilities and enabling them come up with innovative ways of dealing with
the turbulence in the operating environment. KCB bank group was employing expansion
strategy in attaining and sustaining competitive advantage in the local and regional
market and restructuring had an effect on organizational competitiveness through reduced
operating costs. The study recommends that the Bank employ more professional
mechanisms in identifying the training needs of its employees by consulting with
managers together with the individual staff who are to be trained to the human resource
experts department in the Bank. The managers and other stakeholders could apply the
range of expansion strategies highlighted in expanding the scope of markets and
operations and regulatory authorities should come up with policies that will ensure that
commercial banks undertake business operations that are above board.
Description
A research project submitted to the school of business in partial fulfillment of the requiremnt for the award of degree of master of business administration of Kenyatta University. February, 2018