FRANK Ebimoboere
Department of Marketing, Faculty of Administration and Management
Rivers State University Nkpolu-Oroworukwo, Port Harcourt
DIDIA James U. D.
Department of Marketing, Faculty of Administration and Management
Rivers State University Nkpolu-Oroworukwo, Port Harcourt
Abstract
The focus of the study was to investigate the nexus between Core competence and market performance of food and beverages firms in Port Harcourt. Core competence was relied upon as a single unit variable to explain variations in market performance proxied by brand awareness, customer patronage and market penetration. The study whose population consists 19 food and beverages firms as recorded by Nigeria Catalog (BussinessList, 2024), adopted a survey research design. The entire population was surveyed. 4 copies of the research instrument was sent to each of the 19 food and beverages, with marketing, procurement, operations and human resource managers serving as respondents. The simple regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. The results show that core competence has very strong and significant relationship with brand awareness, customer patronage and market penetration. The study concludes that core competence relates to market performance; or that market performance of food and beverage firms in Port Harcourt depends on core competences. The study therefore recommends that management of food and beverage firms should devote more effort to building core competence if they seek to improve their market performance.
Keywords: Brand awareness, core competence, customer patronage, market penetration, market performance.