Blue Ocean Strategy and Customer Retention in Aluminum Firms in North-Central Nigeria

Abstract

The study was conducted to examine the relationship between Blue Ocean strategy and the performance of Aluminum Extrusion Firms in North-Central Nigeria using product innovation strategy as proxy for Blue Ocean Strategy and customer retention as proxy for performance of the Aluminum Extrusion Firms. The study was anchored on the theory of value innovation. To achieve the study objective, a survey research design approach was employed and data were gathered from a composite population of Management and staff of the focused Aluminum Firms and Dealers in Aluminum products otherwise referred to as customers. The combined population was 509 out of which 260 were management and staff of Aluminum Extrusion Firms and 249 for the Aluminum products Dealers. Data for the study was gathered from the target respondents through self-administered questionnaire designed in five points Likert scale of strongly agreed to strongly disagreed. The data gathered was analyzed using descriptive and parametric statistical tools. Tables, mean scores and percentages were the descriptive statistical tools employed to reduce the data into comprehensible form while simple linear regression was the parametric tools used to test the hypothesis of the study. The result of the hypothesis tested showed a significant positive relationship between product innovation strategy as a proxy to Blue Ocean Strategy and performance of the Aluminum Firms represented by customer retention, Based on the finding, the study recommends that Aluminum Extrusion Firms should keep adding values that does not exist before through modification of existing products to meet customer’s tastes and develop new process so as to retain as well as creating new customers.

Keywords: product innovation strategy, customer retention, value innovation.