Information Technology And Strategic Management Practices Of Firms Listed In Nairobi Stock Exchange

Abstract

The external environment surrounding organizations is always changing and therefore firms are being forced to keep up with these changes by being flexible and adapting to the different circumstances that arise. By being dynamic, organizations are able to gain a competitive advantage against the competitors in the market place. An important factor that assists organizations in implementing strategies is Information Technology. Scholars argue that modern organizations cannot achieve much without the use of technology in their firms. This research focused on establishing how information technology was applied in strategic management practices within NSE listed firms. The research methodology employed by the study was cross sectional survey design whereby all the 66 NSE listed firms took part as respondents therefore making this a census study. Gathering of primary data was done using questionnaires. Data analysis was done through descriptive analysis. The findings showed that most firms had to a great extent adopted IT in their organizations in carrying out various strategic functions and that they had adopted IT in formal strategic planning process and extensively adopted in various strategic areas of the organization. This was illustrated by a mean of 4.6944. It was also clear that IT plays a key role in the current organizational business environment and that organizations had embraced it as a key strategic tool in the carrying out functions and conducting situational analysis. The study can conclude that the NSE listed firms had embraced IT in their strategic management efforts whereby they have taken advantage of this resource to identify and explore opportunities availed to them. The study recommended a structured approach for assessing opportunities presented by IT so that companies can benefit a lot by taking advantage of these opportunities to formulate their Internal, Competitive and Business portfolio strategies. The researcher experienced some limitations during the study including time and cost constraints and restrictions and unavailability of respondents during data collection. Further research is proposed on similar concepts of study to specific industries such as manufacturing, banking or by carrying out case studies in specific firms to ascertain whether industry or firm specific dynamics can alter the results of the study as compared to the findings in this study