Operations stratergies in Kenya’s real estate sector

Abstract

Operations strategy is defined as the development of specific competitive strength based on the operations function that is aimed at helping an organization achieve its long-term competitive goals. The research study aimed at establishing the operation strategies in Kenya’s real estate sector. The study established that 82.3% of the sampled firms were found to have a written operations strategy. The study indicates that operations strategies are highly rated in the sector. Quality was the most adopted operations strategy with a mean score of 4.64, time had a mean score of 4.43, flexibility 3.18 and finally cost with a mean score of 3.07. The findings indicate that the sector adoptions of these strategies may have led to its growth and success in recent years. The study also sought to establish the extent of influence of business environment has on operations strategies. It was established that economic factors which included; economic growth rate, interest rates & inflation, and labour & material cost, to have the greatest influence on operations strategies scoring a mean of 3.37. Political factors had a mean score of 2.86, social 2.44 and finally technological with a mean score of 2.39. These findings indicate that real estate firms considered business environment factors when setting their operations strategies. The study recommends that the government should ease the procedures of land acquisition and registration as this greatly hindered the growth of the sector and also largely contributes to the higher prices witnessed in the sector. The government should also develop a framework for public private partnerships between government agencies and the private sector mainly focusing on affordable housing for the low income market. Financiers are also recommended to come up with measures that will make mortgages accessible and affordable. The study was not complete without some limitations. Some of these limitations included decline by some firms to respond to questionnaires. This limitation was overcome by paying personal visits to these firms to convince and promising a copy of the completed project. Another limitation was that majority of the sampled firms were from Nairobi County thus not reflecting a national outlook of the sector. To overcome this, firms that had branches or operations in other counties were given preference when sampling.