| dc.description.abstract | Environmental turbulence has led to rapid changes in technology, increases in consumer tastes and preferences and an ever increasing and unpredictable competitive business terrain across the economy. Business managers are therefore preoccupied with trying to align the internal systems of their firms with the ever changing business environment. It is also important to note that while substantial literature exists on firm’s responses to the environment, there is limited research that has been done on the response to the operating environment by Mount Kenya Bottlers (MKB). The objectives of this study were; to identify the challenges facing MKB in its external environment and to determine the responses by MKB to changes in the external environment.
This research project adapted a case study research design on Mount Kenya Bottlers Ltd. Primary data was obtained from heads of department of MKB by the use of an interview guide. The interview guide was used to gather data on the study topic which was the responses to changes in the external environment by MKB. The interview was designed to obtain information on the responses by MKB to changes in the external operating environment. A total of six heads of the departments had been targeted for the interview. The heads of department were targeted because it is them who are charged with crafting the right response strategies to the changing external operating environment. The secondary data for this study was obtained from the company`s documented response strategies and any other relevant information about the company in relations to the responses to the changing external environmental conditions. Analysis of data was done by content analysis. This is because the data collected was qualitative in nature. The qualitative data was summarized and categorized according to common themes. Only four out of the six top managers, who were targeted for the interview responded. This represented seventy per cent of the total response.
The results indicate that MKB has been faced with rivalry among existing competitors not only from the other coca cola franchise but also from the water companies and EABL’s Alvaro. There has also been competition from companies manufacturing juices and other substitute products. The external environment was also found to pose challenges in terms of the ever changing customer tastes and preferences, strategic leadership and changing technologies and increased cost of energy and production among others. The study findings indicate that MKB utilizes close to ninety per cent of the mother company Coca Cola’s strategies as a response to the changes in the external environment. MKB utilized home ground strategies such as hiring of tents and sale of ice to the non-chilled category to supplement on the franchiser’s core strategies of MKB including: product, place, promotion and people strategies as a response to the external environment. The firm also utilizes product development strategies, marketing, culture change distribution and ICT strategies among others. In addition to the above generic strategies such as differentiation, focus and cost leadership strategies were also utilized by coca cola. Due to lack of enough time and resources, it is therefore recommended that further research be undertaken on the following areas; the impact of competition posed by EABL`s,the effect of the presence of substitute’s products to MKBs and the impact of the employee training on MKB Performance | en |
