The practice and challenges of strategy implementation at cooperative bank of Kenya

Abstract

A nicely drafted strategic plan, prepared through a sophisticated process by a team of accomplished management consultants or a group of top managers, is hardly likely to fail by itself. Failure, when it occurs, almost always happens during the implementation of the strategic plan. Yet, strategy formulation hogs most of the attention of management and strategy thinkers while strategy implementation is sidelined. The apathy to strategy implementation can be ascribed to several reasons, among them: greater likelihood of failures in implementing strategies; higher complexity in the process of strategy implementation; strategy implementation being considered to be less glamorous than formulation; and practical difficulties in research involving middle-level managers. The aim of this study was to determine practices and challenges of strategy implementation at Cooperative Bank of Kenya Limited. This was a case study design where primary data was collected using interview guide. The data obtained from the interview guide was analyzed using qualitative analysis. The study found that the strategy implementation practices employed by Co-operative bank include allocation and management of resources; establishing a chain of command or some alternative structure; assigning responsibility of specific tasks or processes to specific individuals monitoring results and taking advantage of supportive implementation instruments like the balanced scorecard and assessing the obstacles to strategy implementation. The study concludes that the management should be efficient so as to ensure good strategy objective setting, and manage resistance to strategy implementation. The study also concludes that early involvement of firm members in the strategy process helped members understand super-ordinate goals, style, and cultural norms and thus become essential for the continued success of a film strategy implementation. The study recommends that although Cooperative bank has been successful in the strategy implementation, in order to remain profitable and competitive in the market, the bank should continuously train its employees on how the strategy should be implemented, involve staff in decision making and employ efficient communication that avail information on strategy to all stakeholders.