| dc.description.abstract | In a business environment where competition is the order of the day, business entities are
coming up with strategies that will give an edge over competitors at a lower cost.
However, organizations today face major changes that make strategy implementation
difficult and complex than in the past. Therefore it is necessary that an organization
comes up with strategies that it can be able to implement and also avail resources that
will be able to implement the strategies effectively. The study sought to establish the
strategy implementation practices at Institute of Advanced Technology as well as identify
the challenges that affect the implementation of strategies in the organization. A case
study research design was adopted whereby the researcher interviewed six senior
managers at IAT who were involved in the strategic process of the firm. The data was
collected through the use of the interview guide that was prepared to guide the researcher
on the challenges affecting strategy implementation and the measures taken to overcome
the challenges. Analysis of the data was done using content analysis. The findings from
the study suggest that the IAT faces a number of challenges ranging from; slow decision
making process, inadequate resources, cultural interference in some instances, lack of
proactive leadership and non involvement of all the stakeholders in strategy
implementation. In addition, other challenges included employees not committing
themselves to support a new strategic plan from the start to its completion including
review and supporting its recommendation, changing the strategy mid-stream to suit their
focus. The measures taken to overcome the challenges include training employees on
project evaluation and monitoring, involvement of all the stakeholders in strategy
formulation and sourcing for additional funding to finalize on incomplete projects. Some
of the measures suggested included the need to align the organization culture to its
strategy, motivation of staff to enhance performance, accountability of the leaders, and
fast communication of the strategy and team work was identified as yet another measure
to be undertaken by the organization. The study concludes that strategy implementation
at IAT was affected by the structure adopted, culture, communication, the top
management, rewards and the resources. The study recommends that strategy formulation
and implementation process is very vital for the functioning of any organization and the
management of IAT should work to ensure that the challenges which were identified as
affecting strategy implementation are tackled in order to ensure that the institution remain
competitive in the market. | en |
