INVENTORY MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS OF OIL AND GAS COMPANIES IN SOUTH-SOUTH, NIGERIA

Inventory Management Techniques enable organizations to identify and mitigate competitive strategies in critical operational systems, reducing the risk of high costs and ensuring cost leadership in the industry. Inventory management techniques is the independent variable and organizational competitiveness the dependent variable is measured with cost leadership and cost reduction. The study adopted a cross sectional survey research design, the population of this study comprised the twenty-four (24) oil and gas companies operating within South-South Nigeria as enlisted in the finelib.com Nigerian Directory and Search Engine (2022). Based on the small size of the population, the study adopted the entire population as the sample size. However, a Census method was adopted in administering three copies of structured questionnaire to Operations Managers, Procurement/Logistics Managers and Marketing Managers from each of the 24 oil and gas companies in South-South, Nigeria. This means that a total of 72 respondents were used for the study. Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) was used to determine the relationship between the variables with the aid of (SPSS) version 23.0. The findings from literature and analysis revealed that a positive relationship exists between inventory management techniques and organizational competitiveness. In conclusion, inventory management techniques contribute to competitiveness of oil and gas firms in South-South Nigeria. By maintaining optimal inventory levels, companies can enjoy cost leadership and reduction in cost of production by avoiding both overstocking, which ties up capital and stockouts, which can lead to costly delays. The study therefore recommends that oil and gas firms in South-South Nigeria should emphasize greater attention to the degree of inventory management techniques in enhancing overall performance and as a result increase organizational competitiveness.