The Challenges of Creating Sustainable Competitive Advantage in the Banking Industry in Iraq

Abstract

Sustainable Competitive Advantage plays a key role in evaluating the strategic performance of an organization. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the understanding of how Sustainable Competitive Advantage is developed and applied in evaluating the performance of a large local bank in Iraq. Due to lack of research work in this area of banking sector in Iraq, this study shall contribute to the knowledge on how banks in Iraq may apply the Sustainable Competitive Advantage and how they might turn strategic vision into potential performance. The use of the Sustainable Competitive Advantage developed here is limited to the very bank studied here; however, the approach could trigger off reflections among policy makers and other banks to start using the Sustainable Competitive Advantage. The customers tend to deal with the banks that are able to develop their banking services in distinctive way as well as wishing to respond quickly to the wishes of customers, especially if we know how much similarity there is between those services. Thus, the need is urgent for excellence as well as for achieving a competitive advantage compared to other banks. Yet, that cannot be done on the long term unless the bank has the ability to adapt to environmental variables in general and to customers desires in particular. This requires adopting a comprehensive strategy for the purpose of accommodating and amending the procedures for the provision of the service. Lately, plenty of banks are being brazen-out due to confronting considerable rivalry. This is mostly due to these banks failing to have the power of proposing for attractive offers or even having acceptable ties with customers of theirs. This paper aims at analyzing means that can help a bank securing an agile rivalry in a market that is always about competition and winning customers and business accordingly. According to what the discussion has brought up, the idea of sustainability is growing faster lately as a vital criterion marking the size of corporations react for challenges that bear a strategic core nature. According to the conclusion of the paper, there is a necessity for a bank to have the capability of overcoming the inertia of change as well as intersecting new opportunities of the relevant market.