INFLUENCE OF COMPETITIVE STRATEGIES ON PERFORMANCE OF MEDIA HOUSES IN KENYA

The Kenyan media sector has become very volatile following increased liberalization of the sector, the much technological appreciation, heightened competition and also the rapid changes in the consumer buyer behaviors. The available opportunities have overwhelmed the threats in the sector therefore providing market growth a possibility in the sector. All these have made media groups in Kenya find it hard to identify sets of competitive strategies that would ensure that it earns and sustains its competitive strategies. In Kenya media sector to be successful one need to identify sets of competitive strategies that would both identify and sustain competitive strategies. It’s impossible for broadcasting media groups to insulate itself against the major environmental changes affecting the sector and also to shy away from market segmentation and targeting in the present century. Poor cost efficiency practices and also lack of positioning can post serious failures towards identification of competitive strategies. Media groups therefore are expected to advance efforts towards rightful cost efficiency practices as a source of cost controls for a high output from them therefore seeking a competitive advantage as a result. To manage an understanding on how well to adopt cost efficiency practices the Porter’s five forces model is to be provided. Resource based view model offers the best fit theory on how broadcasting media houses can respond well to the challenges of rapid changes in the business environment. Industrial Organization model offers a deep insight towards the best approach of limiting chances of losing track towards understanding the current trends in the market. This study is meant to fill this gap by seeking to establish the influence of competitive strategies on the performance of media houses in Kenya. The study was anchored on Porter’s five forces model, resource based view model, market segmentation and targeting theory and the industrial organization model. The study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional survey. The target population of this study comprised of five major media houses in Kenya that includes Kenya broadcasting corporation, Nation media group, Standard media group, Radio Africa group, Royal media service, Nairobi community media house limited and mediamax communication group. The unit of analysis comprised of 384 employees working for the major media groups in Kenya. A sample of 196 respondents is selected for this study. The questionnaire is the selected instrument or tool for data collection for the study. Quantitative data collected was analyzed by the use of International Journal of Strategic Management Vol. 7 Issue 4 (2018) http://www.ijsse. org ISSN 2307-6305 Page | 185 descriptive statistics using SPSS (version, 21) and presented through percentages, means, standard deviations and frequencies. Multiple regressions were used to determine the influence of competitive strategies on the performance of media houses in Kenya. The results of the study revealed that Hybrid strategy cost leadership strategy, Differentiation strategy and focus strategy positively and significantly influence the performance of media houses in Kenya. The study recommends the media houses in Kenya to investing more in customer benefits to enable the discovery of what customers define as value. The study further recommends for flexible pricing policy to support the growth of the media house market share. There is also need to position products to facilitate the delivering innovative customer services. In addition the study recommends media houses in Kenya to adopt Low cost leadership to improve cost control skill. Further, the study recommends the media houses in Kenya to offer more quality services to enable them to analyze the product profiles frequently. There is also need for innovation to help media house identify the opportunities for new product development.