VALUE CREATION STRATEGY AND SALES PERFORMANCE OF SMALL AND MEDIUM SIZE EXPORTING FIRMS IN SOUTH-SOUTH NIGERIA

The study investigated the relationship between value creation strategy and sales performance of food and beverage exporting Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the South-South geopolitical zone in Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The questionnaire was the main instrument for data collection from a population consisting of 160 firms involved in exporting food and beverages. The sample was made up of managers and owners of the firms. The questionnaire was validated by experts drawn from the marketing department of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The reliability test result using Cronbach Alpha produced a value of 0.842. Both descriptive and inferential statistical tools were employed to analyze the data with Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) (version 21.0). The statistical results showed that customer-centricity strategy was critical in determining the outcome of sales performance of food and beverage exporting SMEs in South-South, Nigeria. The study concluded that customer-centricity as a value-creating strategy had a significant statistical influence on sales performance by food and beverage exporting SMEs in South-South Nigeria. Precisely, 70.0%, changes in sales performance were significantly predicted by customer-centricity. Therefore, this study recommended that food and beverage exporting firms should adopt customer-centricity as a marketing strategy instead of being product-centric.