| dc.description.abstract | Every firm has a mission, vision of where it wants to be in the long run. Successful
accomplishment of which calls for development of strategies to enable the firms focus their efforts in
one direction - the mission. Information or competitive intelligence has emerged as a competitive
weapon in the current marketplace. Information is essential in the setting agreed upon performance
goals, allocating and prioritising resources and as indicators of areas that need management's
corrective action. Having reliable information enables managers to effect positive change in
organizational culture, systems, and processes. Performance measurement Systems when correctly
developed provide such information.
This research project sought to survey how leading Kenyan firms link their operations strategy to
(strategic) performance measurement. Of concern also was whether or not strategic consensus exists
between Chief Executive officers (CEOs) and Operations/manufacturing managers (OW:MM) in
terms of what each considers being important performance objectives and measurement of the same.
The survey was carried among participants of the Company Of the year Awards (myA) as
representatives of best practitioners among Kenya's manufacturing and service companies. As a semi
structured questionnaire was used as an interview guide to collect data. It was administered to both
the CEO and OM top enable analysis of consensus
The findings point to the fact that successful firms have fully recognised the importance of the
operations function in both generating and supporting overall business performance excellence. They
recognise the need to pursue all the operations strategy priorities (quality, cost, flexibility,
time/ delivery speed and innovation) simultaneously as opposed to trading off one for the other. The
differences in rankings are attributable to what constitutes order winners and order qualifiers in the
industries and markets that the firms operate in. These firms have integrated the emerging nonfinancial
performance measures into their performance measurement systems, however there is still
strong emphasis on financial indicators and reports. They recognise the need for PMSs to answer
such questions as, who are the key stakeholders and what do they want or need? What strategies do
we have to put in place to satisfy the wants and needs of these key stakeholders? What critical
processes do we require if we are to execute the strategies, what capabilities do we need to operate
and enhance these processes and what contributions 00 we require from the stakeholders so as to
maintain and develop these capabilities? | en |
