Strategic responses of the co-operative college of Kenya to the changing external environment

Abstract

Co-operative College of Kenya(COCK), just like any other organization whether in public or private sector is affected by its environment. This is because every organization has to interact with the environment for survival. It becomes crucial for organizations to prepare by formulating appropriate strategies. This will enable them exploit opportunities presented by the environment and eliminate or minimize the changes that affect their performance. The niche that the Co-operative College of Kenya has carved for itself over time is threatened by the recent developments at the local and international level. The general business environment has become more volatile, unpredictable and very competitive. For over thirty years the COCK has provided cooperative training as a monopoly. However over time this has changed since these services are now being provided within the context of competition, increased pace of change within the cooperative movement as well as challenges in the local and international environment. The globalization and liberalization of world economies since the 1990’s has also resulted in high environmental volatility coming in unpredictable ways. Environmental changes such as technological innovations and changing consumer tastes and preferences have affected many organizations. The Government of Kenya economic recovery strategy for wealth and employment creation (2003-2007) policy shifted focus to the private sector at the expense of public institutions. The Co-operative College of Kenya was no exception hence for the college to survive it had to discard the business as usual approach and keep scanning the environment to be able to come up with strategies that would help them respond to the environment and hence gain competitive advantage This study was carried out using a case study design and followed two objectives: first to establish the changes in the external environment, secondly, to determine how the co-operative college of Kenya has responded to the changes in the external environment. The study was conducted by carrying out in-depth interview with the top management of the College. A personal interview guide was designed for the purpose of the interview and content analysis method was used for analysis of the data collected