Abstract:
A strategy is a critical component of any successful business plan. A company can use an effective strategy to find its industry niche and gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Kenya's education sector has recently expanded. Therefore, the objective of this study was to look into the impact of service strategy on the competitive advantage of private secondary schools in Kasarani Constituency, Nairobi City County. The study was also founded on theories of resource-based, knowledge-based, and dynamic capabilities. A cross-sectional descriptive research design was used, with both qualitative and quantitative methods. The population consisted of 51 private secondary school directors, and census sampling was used to select all as a sample, yielding a response of 43 (84.31%) after data cleaning. The primary data were collected through questionnaires, and the analyses were carried out using descriptive and inferential statistics. The study found a moderate positive correlation between Service Differentiation Strategy and Competitive Advantage (r=0.859, p=0.004 < 0.05). According to the findings of this study, service differentiation strategy accounted for 67% of competitiveness in the study area's private secondary schools. The study concluded that the service differentiation strategy's impact on the competitive advantage of private secondary schools was significant. The study recommended that private secondary schools in the Kasarani Constituency of Nairobi City County embrace and invest in service differentiation, particularly ensuring that employees understand their customers' specific needs. This will give them a competitive advantage over other private secondary schools in Nairobi City County that have not invested in any strategy. Further research in the study suggests that a similar study be conducted to investigate the effectiveness of marketing strategies on student enrollment in international private primary schools. Further, more research was recommended to establish other impacts of competitive advantages (33%), which were not captured in this study.
