Competitive Strategies That Create Competitive Advantage among Shopping Malls in Nairobi

Abstract

The general objective of the study is to analyze how the competitive strategies employed by shopping malls in Nairobi give them an edge over their competitors in the industry. The study attempts to realize three specific objectives namely; asses the competitive strategies of shopping malls; examine the impact of differentiation on the competitive strategies of shopping malls; examine the impact of focus strategy on the competitiveness of major shopping malls in Nairobi; and impact of cost leadership on the competitive advantage of the shopping malls. Applying explanatory research design, the study targeted 50 managers from the following shopping malls based in Nairobi: - Village Market, Yaya Center, Sarit Center, Green Span Mall and the Junction Mall. Census sampling approach was applied to interview all the managers using a structured questionnaire. The inferential statistics such as Chi-Square tests and correlations were applied to analyse the data. These statistics provided an-depth information about the data that facilitated the conceptualization of the nexus between Competitive strategies and a Shopping malls’ competitive advantage. Regarding the effect of differentiation strategy on competitive advantage, the inferential statistics showed a strong relationship between differentiation strategy and competitive advantage. Further findings reported that more than half of the sampled shopping malls have embraced differentiation strategy as opposed to focus and cost leadership strategies. Further findings revealed that the specific shopping malls offered products that are designed in a superior way compared to the competitors’. In answering the second research question on effect of cost leadership strategy on competitive advantage, the findings showed that more than half of the respondents were unanimous that cost leadership strategy lower operations costs due to the elimination of unnecessary costs implying that the sampled malls have a sustained competitive advantage. The results meant that the sampled malls enjoy the benefits of economies of scale and the malls are guarded against influential buyers and suppliers. However, a considerable percentage of participants did not support the statement that cost leadership strategy protects the specific shopping malls from competition by other malls.

The findings reported that the sampled shopping malls have decreased the pressures of substitutes, rivalry, suppliers and buyers by adopting cost leadership strategy. Regarding the impact of focus strategy on competitive advantage, the findings reported that the sampled shopping malls might not necessarily be targeting a particular niche as a considerable number of the participants had a different opinion on the application of the focus strategy. This implied that the sampled shopping malls may be lacking the specific skills and resources to incorporate focus strategy as part of their competitive strategy. The results of this study therefore provides a valuable reference for top shopping malls in Kenya in terms of implementing competitive strategies as this would help them achieve competiveness and sustainable performance.