Strategic Planning Practices Adopted by Community Based Organizations in Rarieda Sub-county, Kenya

Abstract

The environment in which organizations exist, whether for profit or not is very competitive, turbulent and highly unpredictable. Due to that dynamism organizations need to recognize strategic planning as one good way to develop and implement strategies that would give each business unit a competitive edge. Excellent performance of an organization is a prerequisite for the achievement of the organization’s long-term goals. For organizations to be able to achieve this, they have to incorporate a strategic framework into operational activities that are aimed at identifying and addressing specific issues. The ability of organizations to survive and prosper in the face of current environmental realities will depend on its ability to define its objective and strategies clearly. The purpose of this study was to determine the strategic planning practices adopted by community based organizations in Rarieda sub-county. A census survey methodology was employed in this study where the targeted population were the 15 community based organizations in the sub-county. A questionnaire was developed and personally administered to the chairmen and their secretaries in these CBOs. Data analysis was based on descriptive statistics. Strategic planning practices are very vital for the functioning of any organization. Therefore, the management of community units should come up with strategic plans and also put in place adequate mechanism for tackling challenges facing the community units in the development of the strategies and for successful implementation of the same. The study found that the practices adopted by the CBOs were vision and mission statements, formulation of compelling guidelines, environmental scanning through competitor analysis, trend analysis and evaluations. The study recommends that all CBOs should adopt policy to involve the views of all members in the strategic planning practice as it was established that only 30% of the organizations involved all members in the strategic planning process. The study also recommends that the organizations should adopt a practice of communicating to the stakeholder on the steps taken in the strategic planning process. This will be important because the study established that communication was done to a moderate extent. The study also recommends that the organizations adopt a practice of negotiating with the donors willing to fund the Strategic Planning process. This will be important because the study established that it was only done to a moderate extent. The study was limited to studying the strategic planning practices adopted in the CBOs in Rarieda Sub-County. The study did not explore the extent to which the strategic planning practices were adopted or the extent to which they affected performance. The study suggests that in future, researchers should assess the extent to which strategic planning practices are adopted in the organizations or the degree to which their adoption affected performance of the organizations.