| dc.description.abstract | An organization's success is very much determined by its ability to appropriately respond to the fast changing environment. Gone are the days of protected market and dominant market shares. The organization's environment is turbulent and changing. In turbulent and changing environment, real time response is very important for the success of the organization. The purpose of this project was to determine the environmental challenges facing Kenya Medical Supplies Agency (KEMSA) in its business environment and also to determine the strategic responses adopted KEMSA to counter these environmental challenges. In pursuit of the objective, the study modeled the research on a case study model and as a result data was collected through face to face interview method. The respondents were subjected to open ended questions and the data collected was analyzed using content analysis technique and inferences made based on consistency, credibility and adequacy of data.
The research revealed that the organization has had to develop and adopt vanous strategies to respond to the environmental changes. The organization has formulated both strategic plan and business plan to guide and integrate corporate operations. Other strategic responses deployed include adopting superior technology, strengthening of the organization internal capabilities and competences, collaborations, outsourcing, attainment of the ISO 9001:2000 certification, human resource development, corporate image and marketing strategies. However, the organization continues to face many challenges during the implementation of the same strategies. These challenges include government interference in the management of the organization, reduced funding from the government and donor partners, weak legal mandate, inadequate logistical capacity and recruitment and retention of human resource.
The research design of this project was a case study.
As such, only four respondents were interviewed and their observations might not be representative of all the views of the organization. In addition the research relied solely on employees of KEMSA to obtain information. This is prone to some level of subjecti vity as employees will want to portray their organization as having been successful. The views of more stakeholders such as customers, ministry of Medical Services and ministry of Public Health and Sanitation would have been important in this research considering the critical role they play in the provision of affordable drugs and medical supplies to Kenyans.
In Kenya there are other drug supply chain organizations which are not government owned. It is recommended that more research be done to establish environmental challenges faced by these organization and strategies adopted by these non-governmental drug supply chain organizations. Research could also be carried out to determine the merits and demerits of donor funding in such a critical sector in the country and what impact it can have on the delivery of services. | en_US |
