Strategic Management Practices at Dhl Global Gorwarding Kenya Limited

Abstract

Strategic management covers the general plans within an organization and also the process of incorporating environmental factors that guide decision making. The environment in which organizations operate has compelled organization to apply strategic planning as a pre-requisite in order to adapt to the ever changing environmental circumstances. Strategic management involves the analysis of both present and future environments. The organizational internal strengths are deployed to take advantage of external opportunities and enhance performance. DHL Global Forwarding is an international freight forwarding company that provides air freight, sea freight, road freight and customs clearance services in Kenya. This was a case study whose objective was to establish the strategic management practices adopted by DHL Global Forwarding Kenya Limited. The study used both primary and secondary data for the study. Primary data was obtained through an interview guide with top management that included the country manager, the head of strategy and heads of department and their deputies in finance, marketing, human resources, customs and logistics. The secondary data was obtained from published reports, company’s internal articles and publications. The qualitative data obtained was analyzed using content analysis to present the findings of the study. The findings acknowledged that the organization formulated vision and mission statements and did environmental scanning and there was evidence of strategic planning, objectives setting and monitoring of strategy implementation. This implied that most strategic management approach and techniques can be adopted in most commercial enterprises. The limitation in the research study emanated from lengthy processes and red tapes within the organization to have the approvals for authorization to conduct research. More so, there was time limitation due to the respondents busy work schedules making data collection difficult. The study concludes that DHL management should guide its employees on the importance of the organizations strategic plan. This should include formulation and implementation of formal succession plans in all its departments, provide equal priorities to both strategy formulation and strategy implementation and conduct periodic monitoring and evaluation of strategic plans. The study recommends further research on factors affecting strategic management at DHL. Also, the study recommends research on the effectiveness of the strategic plans at DHL particularly the effectiveness of 2012 to 2017 strategic plan and to evaluate and find out whether the objectives were met.