Strategic Responses to Technological Changes by Barclays Bank of Kenya

Abstract

Organizational environments are everything beyond the boundaries of organizations that can directly or indirectly affect performance and outcomes. In this study the main focus is on strategic responses to environmental changes. Barclays Bank of Kenya is one of the forty four commercial bank licensed by the Central Bank of Kenya. The bank is embracing new technologies which have brought about enormous impact to officers, employees, and customers of banks. Advances in technology are allowing for delivery of banking products and services more conveniently and effectively than ever before thus creating new bases of competition. Several research studies have been done in relation to strategic responses to environmental change but the results of prior researches have been rather inconclusive and have not fully focused on the impact of these responses by firms in Kenya. This study sought to add to the previous studies by conducting a research to establish how the environmental changes influence organizations and the strategies that have been adopted by these organizations to survive in such environments. This study employed a case study where face to face interview has been used as primary data collection method. The data was analyzed using content analysis. Content analysis enables researchers to sift through large volumes of data with relative ease in a systematic fashion. The study found that there were high level of technological solution in Barclay's banks through adoption of mobile banking, adoption of internet banking, through various financial innovation, adoption credit card, use of debit cards among the customer s, strategic alliance with ken switch ATM provider and increasing service delivery and credit information sharing. The study established that challenges faced in the banking sector in response to technological change were high cost of acquiring technology, technological failures, lack of expertise, lack of customer know how on how to use technology, resistance to change by the staff, slow speed of adoption by users, government regulation, stiff competition in the banking sector and lack of top management support for the technological changes. The researcher faced various limitations that were likely to hinder success to the information sought by the study. The study used an interview guide as the instrument for collecting data from managers of Barclays Bank who were not easily available which led to the period of data collection to be longer. This study has explored the strategic responses to technological change by Barclays bank of Kenya. There are other financial institutions and companies in Kenya whose orientation in technology is close to that of Barclays Bank but differ in their strategic response adopted. There is therefore a need to do another comprehensive to investigate the strategic responses to environmental changes in other financial institutions in Kenya.