Strategic Responses And Organizational Competitiveness: A Case Of Kcb Bank Group Ltd, Kenya)

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.