Strategic Management Practices and Performance of to Health in Kenya

Abstract

Strategic management remains important despite the size of the company as the success of a company is dependent on external environment and how it aligns its resources internally to exploit opportunities and cover its weaknesses. Companies that have invested into strategic management practices by ensuring a wholesome formulation processes and adhering to this its implementation process have been observed to have higher prevalence of success as compared to companies that do not. The healthcare sector is a vital sector in any emerging economy as it speak on the health and vigor of the country. Kenya, the country of origin for the case study has been on the rise as a technology hub and various companies have emerged with nifty innovations to propel the country forward, covering gap areas in the young economy. TotoHealth Kenya is one such company. The company is leveraging on technology to disseminate information to monitor the progress of pregnancy and development of children after birth highlighting warning signs thereby enabling parents or caregivers to seek timely care. The study sought to determine strategic management practices applied at TotoHealth and its impact on performance. The research design was a case study limited to the company, TotoHealth in Kenya and data was collected with the aid of interview guides. The interviewees consisted of top level management individuals who are thematic leaders within the company. The study shall use the primary data collected through interviews conducted by the researcher. The answers to the open ended interview questions shall be analyzed through content analysis with categorization of the answers and summarization offering a fuller picture of the organization. The study establishes that the organization and its leadership had managed to involve a number of the staff and all of the thematic managers in the formulation of the strategy and had as well communicated effectively through the use of a tool dubbed Team Assessment Plan the various tasks to be implement as well as the expected deliverables and their due dates. The same tool is used for resource requisition by staff and management as well as for evaluation of the organizations undertakings as the year progresses by management and the board. The outlook from the tool aids in the decision on rewards and remuneration. The study concludes that strategic management has a positive impact to the performance of TotoHealth, Kenya. The study being a case study looked at only one company and thus the findings cannot be used to generalize the sector. The study also recommends for a continual enhancement of communication throughout the strategy formulation, implementation and evaluation in a turbulent environment more so a start-up company. The study also recommends for agility in the operations of organizations that are in volatile environments. And that, strategic management practices should be observed and documented even for companies that are small and starting out. Further studies may be undertaken examining strategic management practices that influence performance in startup companies leveraging on technology as a key element to obtain competitive advantage within the industry.