Innovation Management and Sustainable Competitive Advantage in the Nigerian Deposit Money Banks

Abstract

Innovation Management and Sustainable Competitive Advantage in the Nigerian Deposit Money Banks 1. Introduction As today's business environment becomes ever more competitive, companies are becoming more antagonistic and energetic in identifying competitive strategies that will guarantee profitable existence. In today's highly dynamic and competitive business environment, companies are exposed to severe challenges with meeting the ever-increasing market and customer needs and expectations, coping with sophisticated regulations and requirements, and facing technological obsolescence. In this view, the concept of innovation is gaining major significance as a means of sustaining growth and performance. Joseph and Mark (2013) assert that in order to achieve and sustain competitive advantage and improve organization performance, managers should examine factors affecting the implementation of competitive strategies. They note that an organization should align its strategies with structure, provide strategic leadership, establish a corporate culture and monitor the implementation of the strategies. These measures are particularly important in the banking industry considering the market volatility marked by stiff competition for the masses by commercial banks (Hicks and Niehans, 2012). In the 21st century innovation has been one of the basic aspects of economic and industrial development policies in diverse countries. The political agenda in most highly developed economies always consists of programs that focus on improve innovation capabilities of companies in order to produce diverse products and services (Alba, Alejandro, Xavier and Jaume, 2011). Innovativeness is a popular tool to capture the growth strategy (Li and Atuagene-Gima, 2011) and a vital part of the corporate strategies (Hitt, Ireland, Camp and Sexton, 2011). Innovations have become the main source of competitive advantage in modern business environment. Proactive firms seize market opportunities and make innovations which give them a competitive advantage that makes them remain market leaders. Innovation entails new sources of supply, new products, new processes of production, new markets and new ways in which the businesses carry out their activities (Osuga, 2016). Hajar (2015) stated that the capability to innovate is accepted today as one of the major sources of competitive advantage among companies. Innovation is an essential factor of a firm's strategy mostly because it constitutes one of the major avenue through which it can create new business opportunities. Despite the uncertainty and risk involved, successful innovation management can have a sizeable impact on firms' financial results and economic performance. Innovations gives companies the strategic orientation to gain the competitive advantage (Kuratko, Ireland, Covin and Hornsby, 2015). Johnson, Scholes and Whittington (2015) explained different kinds of innovation. The need for innovation management is obvious and crucial for deposit money banks operating in a continuous uncertain and competi...