| dc.description.abstract | Strategic management covers the general plans within an organization and also the
process of incorporating environmental factors that guide decision making. The
environment in which organizations operate has compelled organization to apply
strategic planning as a pre-requisite in order to adapt to the ever changing
environmental circumstances. Strategic management involves the analysis of both
present and future environments. The organizational internal strengths are deployed to
take advantage of external opportunities and enhance performance. DHL Global
Forwarding is an international freight forwarding company that provides air freight,
sea freight, road freight and customs clearance services in Kenya. This was a case
study whose objective was to establish the strategic management practices adopted by
DHL Global Forwarding Kenya Limited. The study used both primary and secondary
data for the study. Primary data was obtained through an interview guide with top
management that included the country manager, the head of strategy and heads of department
and their deputies in finance, marketing, human resources, customs and logistics. The
secondary data was obtained from published reports, company’s internal articles and
publications. The qualitative data obtained was analyzed using content analysis to present the
findings of the study. The findings acknowledged that the organization formulated vision and
mission statements and did environmental scanning and there was evidence of strategic
planning, objectives setting and monitoring of strategy implementation. This implied that
most strategic management approach and techniques can be adopted in most commercial
enterprises. The limitation in the research study emanated from lengthy processes and
red tapes within the organization to have the approvals for authorization to conduct
research. More so, there was time limitation due to the respondents busy work
schedules making data collection difficult. The study concludes that DHL
management should guide its employees on the importance of the organizations
strategic plan. This should include formulation and implementation of formal
succession plans in all its departments, provide equal priorities to both strategy
formulation and strategy implementation and conduct periodic monitoring and
evaluation of strategic plans. The study recommends further research on factors
affecting strategic management at DHL. Also, the study recommends research on the
effectiveness of the strategic plans at DHL particularly the effectiveness of 2012 to
2017 strategic plan and to evaluate and find out whether the objectives were met. | en |
