Strategies Adopted by Commercial Banks in Kenya for Competetive Advantage; a Case of Equity Bank

A company’s strategy is a management game plan for growing the business, starting out a market position, attracting customers, competing successfully, conducting operations and achieving targeted objectives. The main purpose of the study was to find out the strategies adopted by commercial banks in Kenya for competitive advantage, a case study of Equity bank. Thus the study sought to achieve the following objectives; to establish the strategies adopted by Equity bank for its quest for competitive advantage and to establish the role played by competitive strategies in the growth of Equity bank. The study employed survey research design and the target population comprised 28 employees of Equity bank. Face to face interviews and structured questionnaires was applied to the management and general staff to collect primary data. The generated data comprised of primary (field survey) and secondary (period survey) sources. The data was analyzed through use of quantitive and qualitative methods and the obtained findings were presented in tables and figures. The study identified the strategies adopted by Equity bank as ; provision of variety of products, high level of technology in place ,competent employees, attractive interest rates , competent customer care and giving back to the society through schemes such as sports and scholarships for students. These strategies were adopted for survival, coping up with competition, profit making and growth. The study recommends that there should be an inclusion of other forms of competitive strategies for instance offering and that the bank to adopt competitive strategies that benefit the clients also