| dc.description.abstract | The business environment within which dealers in the wines and spirits industry operate has
experienced several changes. These include: - increased competition, increased government
supervision, political reforms and unfavorable economic conditions. All these have greatly
affected the growth of the industry. This was a descriptive survey intended to establish the
strategic management practices adopted by firms in the wines and spirits industry in Kenya and
determine the challenges encountered by those firms in adopting the strategic management
practices. The population of this study was all firms in wines and spirits industry in Kenya. There were 31
firms nationwide with the break down of 23 in spirits only, 6 in wines only and 2 in both wines
and spirits. Nevertheless, this study targeted all firms in the wines and spirits industry as the
setting. The study used primary data collected using a semi-structured questionnaire. Senior
officers and where possible, the chief executive officers (CEO) of each of the firms in the
wines and spirits industry in Kenya were the key target. Descriptive statistics were used to
analyze data.
It was found out that chief executive officers were involved to a great extent in the
development of corporate goals, missions, objectives, alternative corporate strategies, and
evaluation and approval of the corporate plans, and having planning as a philosophy in the
firms. The involvement of the board of directors in the corporate planning process in firms
dealing in spirits only was low compared to those dealing in both wines and spirits. From the
findings, it was recommended that the process of developing organizational strategy in these
firms must be iterative. Formulation and implementation of strategy must occur side-by-side
rather than sequentially, because strategies are built on assumptions which, in the absence of
perfect knowledge, will never be perfectly correct
Given that the study focused on one industry, a similar kind of questionnaire and research
approach can be used to investigate the strategic management practices of other industries and
sector in Kenya such as insurance companies, banking and non banking lending companies,
leasing companies etc.
vii | en |
