THE USE OF BENCHMARKING PRACTICES IN ACHIEVING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN KENYAN UNIVERSITIES

Benchmarking is a continuous analysis of strategies, functions, processes, products or services and performances with the intention of assessing an organization's current standards and thereby carrying out self-improvement by implementing changes to scale or exceeding those standards. This study sought to carry out a comparative study to examine the extent to which benchmarking practices are used in Kenya universities to achieve competitive advantage. The study used four universities, two in the public and two in the private sector. The study objectives were to identify reasons for initiating benchmarking, to assess the level of success in benchmarking and to assess the effect of benchmarking in achieving competitive advantage in Kenyan universities. The methodology included descriptive research design. Universities were stratified into public and private. The target population consisted of full time lecturers numbering 1114 drawn from the two public and two private universities selected using stratified purposive sampling. Respondents from various schools were then sampled using simple random method. A pilot study was carried out on a sample of 29 lecturers using test-retest in order to establish the reliability of questionnaires. Data was collected using semi-structured. Data was analyzed using statistical analysis generated using the computer application package SPSS version 20. Method