The challenges of strategy implementation at the ministry of East African affairs, commerce and tourism: state department of east African affairs in Kenya

Abstract

Ministry of East African Affairs, Commerce and Tourism: State Department of East African Affairs has strategic plans in place which cover a period of 5 years each. The strategic plan focused on in this study is the one for the period 2008 – 2012. Organisations that have strategies in place face challenges both from within and others from the outside environment. SDEAA as an institution has not been exempted from those challenges and some of these challenges have been encountered in the course of service delivery to the public. This research sought to identify and document the challenges that SDEAA has faced in implementation of its strategies during the period 2008 – 2012 and to determine the measures that can be put in place to ensure that the challenges faced are addressed. Data to enable realisation of the objective of this study was collected using an interview guide and the research method adopted was case study. Judgmental method was used in identification of who to be interviewed. Top management which comprises heads of departments were interviewed to get data for completion of this research. Analysis of collected data was done by content data analysis. Interviews carried out revealed that strategic management practices are found in SDEAA and strategic management processes do exist as there is setting of objectives and targets, formulating strategies, implementing the strategies and they have a control and monitoring unit which supervises the whole process of strategic management. The findings of this study confirmed that actually there exist challenges during the implementation process at SDEAA. Among the challenges include financial constraints, frequent changes in the structure, inadequate staff, policies and procedures and decision making procedures at the EAC Secretariat which take long for a consensus to be reached, political environment and non-cooperativeness of some partner states. In conclusion, this study recommends the need for further studies in the strategic management process so that studies can be done which touch on all the stages of the strategic management process from formulation to monitoring and evaluation so that the findings are consolidated together instead of focusing on only one aspect of the whole process. However, there are implications that this study imposes on policy, theory and practice in strategic management. Policy makers who are the government officials should ensure that policy making process includes all staff in their departments/ministries. In practice all stakeholders should be involved in the strategic management process.