Competitive Strategies and Performance of Pharmaceutical Wholesaler Companies in Kigali, Rwanda

Abstract

This research dealt with competitive strategies and pharmaceutical wholesaler companies’ performance in Kigali Rwanda. The three specific objectives of this research were to examine effect of cost leadership, focus and differentiation on pharmaceutical wholesaler companies’ performance in Kigali, Rwanda. This research study adopted a descriptive research design with one hundred and thirty six pharmaceutical wholesalers in Kigali city licensed and registered by Rwanda Food and Drug Authority as population. The research used size of the sample which were 101 wholesaler companies, selected using stratified probability sampling method. This study used a quantitative data analysis technique to the collected data by use of questionnaire as research instrument and data were coded and analyzed using SPSS version 22.0. Questionnaires pre-test was used through pilot study with teen respondents where the reliability was tested by use of Cronbach’s Alpha. Descriptive statistics results demonstrated that an overall mean of 1.963 calculated during the analysis of the statements regarding cost leadership implied that a big number of respondents strongly agreed that leadership of cost strategies affected pharmaceutical companies’ performance while the calculated overall mean of 2.019 implied that a big number of respondents agreed that focus strategies affect performance of pharmaceutical companies and the overall mean of 2.029 implied that the big number of respondents agreed that strategies of differentiation affected pharmaceutical companies performance in Rwanda. Inferential statistics results revealed that cost leadership, focus and differentiation strategies effected performance of pharmaceutical companies because the calculated correlation results indicated positive and significant relationship between cost leadership strategies and sales revenue (r=0.296 and sig=0.000), focus strategies and profitability (r=0.391 and sig=0.000), and differentiation strategies and market leadership (r=0.964 and sig=0.000) at 0.01 level of significance; while the regression results revealed that there is a positive and significant effect between cost leadership sales revenue (b=0.065 and sig=.004), between focus strategies and sale revenue (b=0.744 and sig=.000) and differentiation strategies (b=0.086 and sig=.030) at 0.05 level of significance. Thus, these correlation and regression results justified why all null hypotheses were rejected because all predictors of competitive strategies showed a significantly positive effect on pharmaceutical companies’ performance or their indicators. In conclusion, the results indicated that competitive strategies demonstrated a positively significant effect on pharmaceutical companies’ performance in Rwanda. The researcher recommended the pharmaceutical companies to enhance their performance by always updating and creating innovation in their competitive strategies in order to ensure that the company is always on top in regard to performance. Keywords: Competitive Strategies, Pharmaceutical Wholesaler Companies, Performance, Rwanda