| dc.description.abstract | Organizations are open systems that depend on the operating environment
for resources and outlets of their products and services (Pearce and
Robinson, 2007). According to Ansoff (1984), an organization must establish
a fit between itself and its operating environment for it to achieve its goals and
objectives and for long term sustainability. An organization must therefore
match its strategy and supporting capability with the environment to optimize
its competitiveness and long-term sustainability (Ansoff, 2006). This therefore
underpins the importance of strategy development process. An organization's
strategy has a major contribution in its strategic management process, hence
the importance of strategy development. Strategic plans are not only
important in private organizations, but also in state corporations such as state
corporations (Johnson et aI., 2005) such as water service boards.
Water services boards are state corporations which were established under
section 51 of Water Act 2002. According to the Act, the mandate of the VVSBs
is to provide water and sewerage services through infrastructure
development, and licensing of water service providers as their agents in
provision of water and sewerage services. As a body mass therefore, the
WSBs are responsible for achievement of the millennium development goals
number 7 target 4 and objectives set out in Vision 2030 for water and
sewerage services. The WSBs operate in an environmental context where the
broad policy framework and long-term objectives are set by the ministry in
charge of water. The demand for the water and sewerage services is big, the
government set objectives very ambitious, but on the other hand, tariffs from
WSPs, which are main source of revenue, are strictly controlled by the
government through the water services regulatory board.
The water services board, like all other organizations, faces challenges
environment related to the environment such as the political, economy,
technology, social, ecological and legal. Further the WSBs as state
corporations face competition for resource allocation from the government
with other state corporations. As' a sub-sector and individually, they also
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compete in attracting bilateral financial support with other state corporations
(Johnson et aI., 2005). The WSBs therefore must operate efficiently and
demonstrate value for money, to achieve their mandate and for long-term
sustainability. This demands for strategic management in the water services
boards. The foundation of strategic management is strategic planning, the
process through which organizations formulate appropriate strategy to
achieve their goals and long-term objectives. The author was not aware of
any previous studies carried out to document the strategy development
processes and associated challenges faced by the water services boards. It is
in recognition of these pertinent issues, that this research was undertaken.
The research was undertaken as descriptive study through the cross-sectional
survey design method of data collection. The population of WSBs licensed as
at August 31st, 2008 the time of this study was small and covered areas of
jurisdiction with contrasting geographical features, and each of them had a
separate and independent board of directors. Therefore a census survey was
undertaken across all the eight WSBs. Primary data was collected using a
structured questionnaire, and results verified through personal interviews of
the respondents, who were the CEOs of these Boards. The data collected
was edited, coded and then analyzed using the SPSS, a computer based
software for statistical analysis.
Through the study, the research established that strategy development
process' in the water services boards were formal and resulted in formal and
documented vision and mission statements and strategic plans. This process
was driven by a select committee of senior managers and the CEO in most of
the WSBs with the facilitation of external consultants. The researcher
established that although all WSBs undertook SWOT analysis as part of the
strategic planning, other aspects of environmental analysis such as
competitor analysis were not common. The researcher established that
during the strategy development process, a monitoring and evaluation plan for
the strategy was developed, however the documented financial plans did not
contain adequate details for implementation.
According to findings in this study, the main challenges in strategy
development faced by the water service boards were inadequate staff
capacities in strategy development, inadequate baseline data for strategic
planning,' and inadequate financial resources for investment. Other significant
obstacles were poor communication modes between the various
stakeholders, and political interference.
In view of the findings from this study, the researcher recommended that
strategy development in WSBs should include a thorough environmental
analysis to enable informed prediction of the future, and therefore
development of realistic strategies and accurate identification of the
associated risks and assumptions. In line with strategy development
practices in successful organizations, the strategic planning process in WSBs
should include development of detailed financial plans for ease of strategy
implementation.
Finally, it should be noted that this study was designed as a descriptive study
hence it was not possible to establish the cause-effect relationship, between
the strategy development processes and the outcome. The researcher
therefore proposed that in future, a study of the relationship between strategy
and performance be undertaken. | en |
