| dc.description.abstract | All organizations find themselves dependent, in varying degrees, on scarce elements in their
external environments. This dependence is usually based on the external elements’ control of
some resources which the organization needs, such as land, labour, capital, information,
intellectual property rights, or a specific product or service. The importance of the resource
to the organization, the number of potential supplies and the cost of switching suppliers, all
affect the degree of dependency (Kotter, 1979). This research project was a case study of
strategic responses by Access Kenya Limited to changing environment. Its objective was to
establish what changes have taken place in the competitive environment of the Internet
Service Providers (ISPs) Industry in Kenya and to determine how access Kenya Limited
responded to changes in the environment. In order to meet these objectives, primary data was
collected through in-depth interview of nine senior managers of Access Kenya Limited. The
collected data was analyzed using content analysis technique. The research findings indicated
that Access Kenya Limited was facing stiff competition in the environment. The firm was
facing challenges of servicing debt, pressure for price reduction, brain drain, and fluctuation
of the dollar versus Kenya shilling which is affecting its debt. Access Kenya limited has,
however, responded to these challenges by implementing cost cutting measures,
consolidation strategy, and renegotiation of band width contracts with International fiber
optics cable owners and converted their dollar denominated debt into Kenya Shilling in order
to stabilize debt servicing. In order to survive and succeed in the changing environment,
Access Kenya Limited will need to implement stringent control of their budgetary process, cost cutting measures and focus mainly on their value adding activities. A review of their value chain is necessary in order to re-engineer their business processes. A case study may not reflect the general situation in an industry. The generalizability may therefore be limited unless it is replicated in several case studies and
there is a general concurrence in research findings. In view of the rapid change in the ICT
industry in Kenya, it will be interesting to investigate how the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are responding to the changing environment | en |
