The Influence of market focus planning strategies on competitiveness of private universities in Nairobi County, Kenya

In the last three decades, the republic of Kenya has witnessed a tremendous increase in the number of chartered universities and a stiff competition for students. The student enrolment base coupled with the emergence of private university education providers turned the university arena in Kenya into a student enrolment market, leading to intense competition between Public and Private Universities. The researcher realizes that, the existing studies relate competitiveness with performance. Thus, the purpose of this study was to assess the influence of market focus planning strategies on competitiveness of private universities in Nairobi County, Kenya. Resource Based Theory, Competitive Advantage Theory and Generic Framework Theory guided this study. The study applied mixed method approach and thus adopted concurrent triangulation design. Target population comprised 66 Registrar Academics, 66 Registrar Admissions and 33 Directors of Marketing all totalling to 165. Using the Central Limit Theorem, 36 Registrars of Academics, 36 Registrars of Admissions and 18 Directors of Marketing were purposively sampled. Questionnaires were used to collect data from Registrar Academic and Admissions whereas interview guide was used to gather data from Directors of Marketing. Data analysis began by identifying common themes from the respondents’ description of their experiences. Qualitative data were analyzed thematically along the objectives and were presented in narrative forms. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferentially using Chi-Square through Statistical Packages for Social Science and presented using tables. The study established that many private universities have not fully adopted market focus planning strategies to enhance their competitiveness. The study recommends that private universities design and market their academic programmes affordable to students from all socio-economic backgrounds