Strategic Responses Due to Changing Competitive Environment (A Case Study of Uchumi Supermarkets Limited in Kenya)

Today’s organizations engaging in businesses have to contend with the dynamics of a changing competitive environment. However the modern trend has shifted from external environmental analysis only to more sophisticated internal organizational analysis. The research is a case study on Uchumi Supermarkets, a retail chain in the Kenyan market that has been in operation for more than thirty years. Issues that the research considered include: the usefulness of combining retail market segmentation with competitive analysis as a very effective method to understand the dynamics of retail markets and to analyze strategic options for supermarket chains. To determine how Uchumi has emerged and responded to competition in the industry. To assess the characteristics of strategic management systems and implementation that has been adopted by Uchumi and their effectiveness. Various documents were used to collect data. The respondents were selected at the researcher’s convenience making this study a purposive sample. The research design used was descriptive and integrated both qualitative and quantitative methods. The strategies adopted include differentiation, advertising, high quality products and services and continuous training of staff. The study concluded that Uchumi has adopted strategic processes and that is how they are able to address the issue of competition considering they recorded profits in the financial year ending 2007 after being placed under receivership in 2006.
The study recommends that companies continuously adopt strategic policies both within the organization and externally while integrating its most important resources (employees). Also, strategy formulation is not the work of managers based at the head office as implementation is the duty of the whole organization.