Operations Strategies and Competitiveness of Kenyan Cooperative Sector

Abstract

Organizations are operating in unpredictable environment forcing firms to develop strategies that can be able to enhance their competitiveness. Every business needs to be focused on strategic planning in their operations management. Effective operations strategies lead to productive competitive organizations, and primarily aim at improving competitiveness. Operations strategy ensures that an organization uses its resources effectively thus attainting its goals. Many organizations have not yet been able to apply their operations to acquire competitiveness. The main challenge has been their inability to operationalize their operations strategy. Giving of loans in Kenya has been made much easier by the cooperative movement. This sector has a high level of competition as there are many SACCOS and they all compete to ensure they provide quality products and services to their members who are also their main customers and shareholders. The current study aimed to determine operations strategies employed by cooperative sector. The study was anchored on Resource-Based Theory and Theory of Competitive Advantage. The study used descriptive research approach. The objective populace of this examination was 64 licensed SACCOs by SASRA and operates within Nairobi metropolitan. Purposive random sampling technique was adopted to sample either operation or strategic staff in each company. The examination embraced essential information where information was gathered utilizing a poll. The information contained in the study was both quantitative and qualitative in nature. Quantitative information was presented in diagrams, tables and charts. Relapse examination was additionally led to build up the connection among reliant and autonomous factors. The study established that organization considers the capital to devote to particular businesses and in order for an organization to increase its total shareholder’s return requires Sacco’s to align its business, financial and investor strategies. The study also found that implementation of enterprise competition strategy is based on the exploitation of volume and scale. In line with the study results, the results illustrates that organizations should screen the earth in which they are operating in order to come up with imitable operation strategies that can enhance their competitiveness. Likewise, the study recommends that management staff should work closely with the marketing staff so as to ensure sharing of information within the environment in regard to customers preferences. This will help them to develop strategies that are in line with the products and services they offer which will eventually enhance organization strategies and competitiveness.