Strategic management practices of major Advertising agencies in Kenya

Abstract

The conditions of the business environment within Kenya have been volatile in the recent past especially the past six years since post second president of the republic of Kenya's 24 year rule. It is within this period that Kenya experienced economic growth stepping from -2%to 7%in year 2007 as per central bank of Kenya Economic Journal. The country experienced a kind of violence that has not been witnessed before which had ethnic cleansing dimensions and lots of destruction of property. It is against this backdrop that the economy initially booming was almost brought to its knees. As per Central bank of Kenya Economic Journal, April 2008, the economic growth is expected to slow down to under 4%. It is also around this time that the wall Street in United States came crumbling down and with world majors stocks indexes tumbling in a bearish market that saw the world sink into a near economic recession. Some renowned multinational giants like Lehmann Brothers, Invesco etc collapsed. In Kenya, the stck index fell from 5460 in January to 4023 in November 2008. Most other stock indicators world such as Case 30( Egypt), Sensex (Mumbai) sap (US), Nikkei (Tokyo) etc have all been registering massive declines. Such changes took a toll on adverting agencies heavily in the first half of year 2008 and it is apparent that should the global economic downfall continues, the advertising agencies will not be spared especially noting that they derive their existence businessesoperating within these economies. The objective of this study was to determine the strategic management practices of major Advertising agencies in Kenya with a view to Establish if indeed the agencies practices strategic management or not and if so the extent to which established strategic management practices are adopted by the agencies. Data was collected through questionnaires dispatched via hand delivery or email and that was later collected from the respondents. 18 agencies were targeted, but only 15. These were considered representative of the industry practice. - viThe study concluded that formal strategic planning is adopted in major advertising agencies in Kenya. The management of the major agencies have the strategies in their minds. Future studies in this area can get more in-depth information using the case study approach