| dc.description.abstract | Strategies are a critical element in organizational functioning, but whereas most organizations have good strategies, successful strategy implementation remains a major challenge. The thought of strategy implementation might seem quite simple, a strategy is crafted then implemented .Successful strategy implementation is a critical and difficult as the strategic choice. It requires consideration of resources to be used, structure, system and other variables.
Many studies have been conducted on how Kenyan organizations have responded to the changing environmental conditions and on how strategic change management . These studies have not focused on the challenges to strategy implementation .It is againaist this presumption the researcher felt the need to contribute to this void by undertaking a study on a SPSS East Africa.
The study established that SPSS East Africa has implemented various strategies since its
. inception. The implementation of major strategies was categorized phases. The first major category of strategy implementation was on the market and the client focus while the second was on ownership and governance . The third category of strategy implementation was on management and the fourth category focused on the staff.
The finding ofthe study established that the major challenges encountered by SPSS East Africa while implementing strategies included poor partnerships and sub distributor programs outreach. The organization had not expanded its services to include databases and data warehouses to manage data, information integration and master data management to establish accurate and trusted information, as well as various analytic capabilities.
SPSS East Africa Overcome strategy challenges through fostering developed partnership and sub distributor program outreach .It also redesigned the mission to reflect its actual clientele: customers and business partners. The organization also initiated various changes which can be categorized into four have had an effect on the staff morale and performance. The first major category change is on the market and the clients focus; the second one is ownership and governance; the third one is management and measurement, and the last one is the focus on the staff.
The changes have also been implemented in phases .The changes has resulted in delivering SPSS powerful analytic tools to private and public sectors to achieve better decisions with high-value data preparation, analytical reporting and modeling.
The study was based on SPSS East Limited and it could therefore give a general picture on strategy implementation, its challenges and how these challenges are addressed by . other information technology firms operating in Kenya and Sub -Saharan region . The findings of the study are based on the experience of SPSS East Africa in journey of a very turbulent business environment .
The study focused on the strategy implementation aspects of the strategic process leaving out formulation aspect as well as evaluation aspect which are essential components of strategic management process. A replica of this study should be done after some time to evaluate the continuous changes taking place at SPSS East Africa and the findings compared. | en_US |
