Promoting the Use of Change Management Strategy to Achieve Sustainable Competitive Advantage of Organisation : A Case of Banking Organizations in Harare, Zimbabwe

The study on promoting the use of change management strategy to achieve sustainable competitive advantage of organisation: A case of banking organizations in Harare, Zimbabwe was conducted because most banking organisations in Zimbabwe have been making losses. Organisations such as NMB, Steward and FBC Bank Limited have been recording losses as a result of failure of adopting change management (Karodia, 2018). This study was guided by objectives such as to determine the forms of management changes that banking organisations elsewhere have adopted and transformed business, to identify reasons why the banking organizations in Zimbabwe are failing to adopt change management strategies and to establish the ways to effect change management strategies in the banking organisations in Zimbabwe. The study sampled 217 respondents from NMB, Steward and FBC Bank Limited. The primary data was collected using a questionnaire and was analysed using descriptive statistics and mean comparison using SPSS v21 software package. The results shows that banking organisations have adopted forms of changes such as digital innovation, mergers, diversification and acquisitions. It was also raised that lack of management support, limited resources, resistant to change, culture misalignment and lack of skilled personnel are reasons why the banking organizations in Zimbabwe are failing to adopt change management strategies. In this study it was noted that organizational culture alignment, adjusting leadership style, involving every stakeholders, consultations from senior managers and directors and communication with each member are ways to effect change management strategies in the banking organisations in Zimbabwe. The study recommend that the leadership needs to have the mindset that even though the ability to change (agility, resilience) is essential for the survival and growth of companies. There still needs to be a concerted effort to build capacity to lead change effectively, and there also needs to be a purposeful effort to build a change friendly culture in a systemic manner