| dc.description.abstract | Procurement, being a very critical process in the organization, needs effective and
strategic management as it is a great determinant of revenues and costs of an organization
and that an effective procurement can give competitive advantage. Effective strategic
management is therefore very critical in creating efficient procurement processes of any
organization as procurement is mostly, linked to production whereby it plays an
increasingly important role for an organization’s profitability. The purpose of this study
was to investigate the effects of strategic management on procurement processes and
operational efficiency of major oil companies operating in Kenya. The study adopted a
descriptive research design. The study targeted the major oil companies in Kenya (See
Appendix I). Since there were only five, the study adopted a census approach and
targeted one top level manager from the finance, procurement, risk management and
operations department in all the five companies. This gave us a target population of 20
respondents. The study collected both primary and secondary data. The primary data
collection instrument was a questionnaire, which had both open and closed ended
questions. Before processing the responses, the completed questionnaires were checked
for completeness to ensure consistency. The data was then coded and analyzed using
Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS V. 20) and Microsoft Excel. From the
findings the study concluded that there is a significant relationship between strategic
management in procurement and operational efficiency. The study also concluded that
strategic management in procurement affects operational efficiency by leading to
competitive pricing of oil products on the market, reduced wastages in the management
of oil products, increased oil product output for the company, eliminated product
shortages on the market and increased competitive advantage for the organization. The
study recommended that the management of these companies embrace strategic
management in procurement to cut on cost and gain competitive advantage thus better
performance of the organization. The study also recommended that the management of
these organizations to come up with strategies that will ensure reduced wastage of
resources and thus prevention of losses through the wastage of these resources. | en_US |
