Strategic management practices at general motors East Africa Limited

Abstract

The grand promise of strategic planning has been to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of organizations by improving both current and future operations. Strategic planning provides a framework for management’s vision of the future. The process determines how the organization will change to take advantage of new opportunities that help meet the needs of customers and clients. The strategic planning process is used by management to establish objectives, set goals, and schedule activities for achieving those goals and includes a method for measuring progress. Our study aimed at examining the strategic management practices at General Motors East Africa Limited. The study reviewed related literature based on objectives of the study in order to establish the what others studies say about strategic planning. The study used a case study of General Motors East Africa. A case study will be the most appropriate in meeting the research objectives by providing detailed explanation of strategic management practices at General Motors East Africa Limited. The researcher used primary and secondary sources of data for this study .The primary data was collected through interview guides. This allowed the respondents ample time to respond to questions asked bearing in mind that the interviews will be administered during working hours. Secondary data on strategic plans was obtained from the records of General Motors East Africa in Kenya. Key interviewees of the study were general manager, operations manager, product manager, marketing manager, strategy and development managers. The collected data was examined for completeness and clarity. Data collected was thereafter analyzed using content analysis. The findings show that there exists a strategic plan that is followed in GMEA for their operations. The plan is used to guide the company on the way forward. The study established that, majority of the respondents agreed to a great extent that General Motors East Africa Limited applied the following measures to improve the planning process and get optimal results from strategic planning process; strategy development is combined with capital allocation, and management team treats strategic planning as part of its daily responsibilities respectively, from the findings the top management was committed towards strategy implementation plans. The commitment by the top management affected to a very great extent the strategy implementation. The study also found out that the top management’s commitment to the strategic direction is significant factor and that the managers must demonstrate their willingness to give energy and loyalty to the implementation process for it to succeed and not spare any effort to persuade the employees of their ideas for strategy implementation to be effective at General Motors East Africa Limited. The study recommends that the management should ensure that they employ and deploy qualified and competent individuals. In addition, the study recommends that General Motors East Africa Limited should employ monitoring/supervision mechanism, to allow efficiency in strategy implementation.