The Role of Strategic Management in Organizations’ Resource Allocation: a Case of Kenya Pipeline Company Limited.

Abstract

The study was to establish the role of strategic management in resource allocation in KPC, establish any challenges faced by the Company in its resource allocation process and recommend mitigating factors on the challenges. The researcher used both primary and secondary data. The primary data was derived from the interviews administered to the sample respondents who were ten chief officers of the company. The secondary date was obtained from the Company’s documents that included strategic corporate plan, past resource allocation schedules, management decision on past resource allocation process and government circulars on resource allocation guidelines. By quantitative analysis, the researcher concluded that strategic management plays a big In addition, the study identified challenges that are faced by the Company in the resource allocation process and mitigating factors. Some of the challenges identified include failure to accurately determine the revenues and expenditure to be incorporated in the resources allocation proposal. The study further established that business environment is dynamic and economic variables change with the changes in the environment for example drought. Hard business operating environments result to inflation which causes increase in prices of goods and services. It is important to note that such environments may not be predicted with certainty. The scarcity of resources is another challenge that featured prominently in the study. On many occasions, resource allocation proposals are reduced or items removed due to unavailability of resources. Resource allocation process was observed to be time consuming. Stream lining of the system through automation of the process was recommended to address this challenge.