| dc.description.abstract | Today's organizations in both developed and developing countries operate in a turbulent and regulated environment and hence the need to establish distinctive and unique capabilities in order to gain a competitive advantage through formulation and implementation of effective strategic planning practices. Strategic planning practices involve the formulation of vision and mission statement, performance of situational analysis and strategy formulation.
The study sought to determine strategic planning practices in the Barclays Bank of Kenya and how this has helped the bank achieve its goals. The study adopted a case study design and it targeted ten senior managers at the corporate level which comprise of corporate director, retail director, human resource director, head of channels, head of branch operations, head of marketing, head of cash management, head of treasury, head of customer support and senior change manager. Primary data was collected using an interview guide and content analysis was used to analyze the data.
The study established that the bank's vision, mission and values have been clearly set and communicated to employees who are fully committed to the process of strategic planning. It further established that most of the decisions in Barc1ays Bank are planned and engineered in United Kingdom and passed on to respective countries for implementation.
The findings led to the conclusion that Barc1ays Bank of Kenya has a strategic plan in place and this has helped the company achieve its goals and increased the company profitability. It further concludes that there are various factors including stiff competition, availability of funds among others that might hinder the strategic planning practices and need to be effectively managed.
The study recommends that there should be proper budget allocation to support the strategic planning practices in the bank, the need for Barclays bank of Kenya to formulate plans independently without relying on group office for approval and the need of thorough market and competitor analysis so as to be able to foresee challenges and opportunities in the company. Finally, the study suggests the need to study other competitor's strategy planning practices and challenges facing strategic planning practices in Barclays Bank of Kenya. | en_US |
