An Assessment of Competitive Strategy Practice: in the Case of Ethio-telecom’s Headquarter

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess ethio telecom’s competitive strategy practiced to compete in the industry it previously had monopoly over. As part of Digital Ethiopia 2025’s first major step towards a more connected and efficient economy, the telecommunication industry monopoly in Ethiopia ended. Following that, Ethio telecom faced an aspect of business operation it hadn’t before due to its monopoly over the telecommunication industry, competition. The study used descriptive survey design as it sought to describe the topic within it objectively, and data was analyzed using statistical tools based on summarized comparisons using percentages and ratios. The entire population was used as the sample of the study due to the amount not exceeding 100. The target population for this study was 68 respondents from employees working in the headquarter of ethio telecom with reasonable working knowledge on the topic of the study to give adequate answers. The employees were a combination of managers, supervisors, experts and specialists. As a result of competition being a recent business concept for ethio telecom, there isn’t a proper structure of employees in a clearly defines hierarchy there to deal with it. Therefore, great care was taken when targeting employees capable of providing good enough answers. The research used a structured questionnaire to collect primary data. The findings of this study indicated that ethio telecom applies combined competitive strategies of cost leadership, differentiation and focus strategies for competition, with a more emphasis on the differentiation strategies. The study also found out that technological, competitive, political/legal/ and sociocultural factors are main external factors whereas technological resource, financial resource factors and reputation of ethio telecom are main internal factors that have significant influence on the ethio telecom’s decision on formulation and selection of its competitive strategies. Based on these conclusions of the study, the researcher recommended that ethio telecom establishes a proper organizational structure in dealing with its competitive strategies formulation and implementation, as well as emphasize on competitive strategies relating to customer retention since it has almost all of the customers in the Ethiopian telecommunication industry. Moreover, the researcher recommended that ethio telecom have monitoring and communication systems that allows the company to observe and report any changes in the telecommunication industry for any adjustments and prevent and mitigate any risks and negative impacts from the internal and external factors the company faces.