Extent to Which Saccos Have Invested in Information Technology to Achieve Sustainable Competitive Advantage over Their Rivals: A Case of KISII County, Kenya

Information is an indispensable resource to an individual, organization, a country or even the world at large. People are always in need of communicating. Communication is an even more prominent activity in our working lives. Information technology components have proved themselves in enhancing the speed, accuracy and efficiency with which management have achieved in handling huge volumes of data at their disposal on daily basis with minimum fatigue. Information technology in organizations is therefore viewed lately as a core competence with which organizations can use to outwit their rivals in the business industry. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which SACCOs operating in Kisii County have invested in information technology to achieve sustainable competitive advantage over their rivalry. Thirty (30) SACCOs were studied with a target population of one hundred and twenty (120) respondents. A sample size of 92 respondents was obtained using simple random sampling technique. Structured questionnaires were used to collect data that was then subjected to Microsoft Excel and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software (Version 21) for analysis. The findings showed that 78.3% of the respondents were male while 21.7% of the respondents were female. Majority of the respondents had an age bracket of between 36-55 years translated to 68.3%. The findings further revealed that, 30% of the respondents were members of business SACCOs, 23.3% were members of Civil Servants’ SACCOs, 22.3% were members of Farmers’ SACCOs, and 13.3% were members of Company SACCOs while the remaining 10% were members of social welfare SACCOs. It was found that, 65.2% of responses did not use Information technology much. The respondents were satisfied with the competitive strategies adopted; results depicted satisfaction of members with the role of Information technology in enhancement of sustainable competitive advantage. Was deduced, managers to embrace Information technology in their day-to-day running of their activities for a competitive edge.