Strategic planning practices of private security firms in Kenya.

Abstract

Strategic planning has become a pillar of many business operations in the turbulent business environment. It is a common characteristic when presenting any business proposal at a forum with other organizations, to be asked to present the company profile. The basic components of a company profile being the mission statement, the vision and company objectives among others. Therefore, for any business enterprise to survive in this turbulent business environment, strategic planning can not be ignored.

The study attempted to explore the extent to which private security firms in Kenya have adopted strategic planning practices in their day-to-day business operations and, to establish the challenges they face in pursuit of their strategic planning practices.

A survey was carried out on 50 of the private security firms. The choice of the firms was based on the list of those private security firms registered by the Protective Security Industry Association and the Kenya Security Industry Association. The survey comprised of a representative sample of classified security firms registered with the Protective Security Industry Association and Kenya Security Industry Association. The target respondents comprised of the Chief Executives or top management cadre. The findings were based on the data collected from 35 respondents. Data collection was by use of questionnaires which were dropped and picked later. Data was then analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Based on the research findings, it was concluded that the private security firms in Kenya practiced some aspects of strategic planning. However, on the whole, it can be stated that the concept of formal strategic planning is not well entrenched in these private security firms.