The Classroom Situation: Improving Study Habits of Secondary School Students in Zimbabwe

Kirui Damaris and Margaret Oloko

International Journal of Management Sciences, 2014, vol. 3, issue 12, 880-885

Abstract: Changing consumer perception/lifestyle makes continual market monitoring essential. Since firms must compete in a complex and challenging environment, achieving a competitive advantage is a major concern for the management of clothing retail stores in the competitive and slow growth markets. A firm is said to have competitive advantage when it is implementing a value creating strategy not simultaneously being implemented by any current or potential competitors and when these other firms are unable to duplicate the benefits of this strategy. The aim for competitive advantage is the reason that organizations focus on strategies that are difficult for the competitors to imitate. The study will explore the dynamics of clothing retail arena and how Michael porter’s three generic strategies are used by clothing retailers who operate in Thika town to gain competitive advantage. This is a comparative case study of clothing stores or retailers that are closely located and face similar competition. It will help identify how generic strategies have been adopted and recommend the one that yields the highest competitive advantage. The clothing retailers operate under the same business environment in Thika town and thus have to compete for the same customers thus creating stiff competition among them. The three generic strategies are: cost leadership, differentiation and focus strategy. Cost leadership strategy is concerned with lowering costs consequently lowering the prices of commodities. Strategies related to differentiation are designed to appeal to customers with a special and unique product. A focus strategy on the other hand can be anchored on a low cost base or a differentiation base where the strategy attempts to attend to the needs of a particular market. Descriptive research design will be used and the target population will comprise of the management and employees of the retail stores. Systematic random sampling will then be used to select the sample under study. Data will be collected through the use of questionnaires and the findings analyzed and presented using tables, pie charts, graphs and percentages. The analyzed data will help establish how competitive advantage has been achieved by the clothing retailers through Porters generic strategies. It will identify the specific differentiation, focus and cost leadership strategies that they practice and how the strategies have enabled the stores to remain relevant in the very competitive clothing industry.

Keywords: Competitive advantage; Clothing retailers; strategies. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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