Abstract: Success of organizations, come about when organizations align themselves to the external environment. The paper reviews theoretical and empirical literature on strategic positioning for sustainable competitive advantage: The theory that underpins the concept of the study paper is Porter’s Theory of Competitive Advantage which opines that for a firm to be successful it has to have both an attractive relative position as well as an attractive industry structure. The paper argues that the need to align an organization to its environment creates need for strategies, thus strategy is the working relationship between organizations and the environment. This however must be supported by organizational internal capabilities, unique to that organization. It is with all these knowledge in mind that will enable organizations to still outdo each other. Positioning is meant to give sustainable competitive advantage to an organization so as to increase its market share, shareholder value, profits and customer satisfaction. It is concluded that competitive advantage occurs when an organization acquires or develops an attribute or combination of attributes that allows it to outperform its competitors. These attributes can include access to natural resources, such as high grade ores or inexpensive power, or access to highly trained and skilled personnel human resources. Further the paper concludes that new technologies such as robotics and information technology can provide competitive advantage, whether as a part of the product itself, as an advantage to the making of the product, or as a competitive aid in the business process for example, better identification and understanding of customers. The paper therefore recommends that before an organization undertakes proper strategic positioning endeavour, it should first scan the external environment in relation to its internal strengths and weaknesses. Organizations should further have a vision and mission, anticipate competition and place the organization or its products in a very strategic manner in the market. Therefore there is more evidence that successful strategic positioning starts with the building associations of the product based on their already existing strengths of the product.
Keywords: Strategy, Strategic positioning, External environment, Competitive advantage.
Title: STRATEGIC POSITIONING, EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE FIRM’S COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: A REVIEW OF THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL LITERATURE
Author: Nyaberi, Justry P. Lumumba
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
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