Abstract:
Banking Industry is the growing Industry in Tanzania which has stiff competition. Telecommunication Industry is also entering the market. For the long run survival of the Banking industry, strategies on how to operate in this dynamic environment are of vital important. Taking the Idea of Michael Porter (who is considered the father of marketing) suggested three generic strategies for a firm to sustain in the competitive environment. Product differentiation strategy is among of the three generic. NMB Plc is practicing Product differentiation strategy despite of all risk associated to it. Risks associated with product differentiation strategy are like imitation of the competitors, change of customer preference and cost. The research is assessing the contribution of Product differentiation strategy on Sales Performance, the Case of NMB Plc. - Songea Branch.
The Researcher used sample of 24 out of 30 NMB personnel and 250 out of 2500 NMB customers where by different techniques were employed including questioners, interview and observation. Data were analyzed to find out the relationship between variables (product knowledge, perception, preference and cost of differentiated products) and sales performance to reflect the topic of study and different figures and tables were used for simple understanding of the findings.
Findings show that, there is significance relationship between variables (preference, product knowledge perception and cost of differentiating products) to sales performance, hence product differentiation strategy has a positive contribution to sales performance.
Some of the recommendation made by the researcher to NMB management, NMB Management must put consideration to network problems, pensioners customers, security to customers’ accounts and consistence is service provision. The researcher went further to call other Researcher to different angles like contribution of specific product to sales performance, the same topic to different areas and research on other Porter’s strategies to different business sectors.
