Strategic responses by Sasini coffee company limited to environmental changes in Kenya

Abstract

Businesses depend on the scare resources in their external environment .The scarce resources include as land, labour, capital, information, intellectual property rights, or a specific product or service. The degree of dependence is influenced by the importance of the resource to the organization, the number of potential supplies and the cost of switching suppliers. Therefore, the firm has ensured that there is a strategic match between the changes in its business environment, strategic responses in place and the firm capacity. It also means that, firms have to build on their existing strength to capture market opportunities and further develop high-value products and services. This study therefore sought to establish the strategic responses adopted by Sasini Limited to its business environmental changes. The study findings are of significance to top managers and business consultants in addressing environmental changes affecting their companies. The findings also provide a basis and guidelines to Government agencies and research organizations for developing and formulating policies. The findings will further provide a baseline to monitor the trends in strategic responses to environmental changes while identifying new challenges and recommendations. This research was conducted through a case study. The study utilized primary data that was obtained from senior managers using an interview guide. The data collected was qualitative in nature, and was analyzed using conceptual content analysis. To conduct the conceptual content analysis, the data collected, was coded, on the theme basis of strategic responses, vision, strategies adopted to respond to the external environment and various organizational responses, levels of competition and implementation in as far as globalization and liberalization of the industry is concerned. The study revealed that Sasini limited is using certification of the commercial coffee mills, adopting coffee value addition through roasting and packaging as well as opening Savanna coffee lounges at the heart of Nairobi city working on the improvement and rebranding of its existing coffee products and services as strategies to respond to the changing business environment. The study recommends that, Sasini Coffee Company limited should pursue to work very closely with outsourced coffee growers and help them farm coffee as a business to realize high coffee production with high quality attributes to easy penetration into specialty coffee world markets. The study having adopted a case study design makes it difficult to generalize the findings to the entire coffee sector. The study only allowed for in-depth study of Sasini Limited and can only be inferred to other organizations with caution. This study was also limited by time. The study had to be done within a limited time span and thus meant that intense exposure to the subject variables may have been constrained. The study was further limited by the fact that the researcher only interviewed senior managers of Sasini coffee company .The study used a sample size of seven respondents’ and thus the study suggests that for other studies dealing with the same, a larger sample size should be used. To this end, therefore the same study should be carried out in other coffee commercial milling and marketing firms to find out if the same results would be obtained.