Strategy implementation at Strathmore university

Abstract

The success of an organization does not come without a plan. However, the plan has to be appropriately implemented. Strategy implementation is crucial because it links strategy formulation and its success. Organizations prepare very excellent strategies which in most cases are never implemented for various reasons. The main purpose of this study was to establish the challenges of strategy implementation at Strathmore University and also to determine the measures taken to deal with these challenges. This study was guided by the McKinsey 7-S Model of Strategy Implementation. It recognizes the seven factors critical for effective strategy execution as strategy, structure, systems, staff, skills, style and shared values. The study used a case study design. The study used both primary and secondary data where primary data was collected by use of face to face interview between the researcher and the respondents using an interview guide. The secondary data was obtained from Strathmore University strategic plan, service charter, ISO certification documents and annual reports. The data which was qualitative in nature was analyzed using the content analysis technique. It is a technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying characteristics of messages. The information was analyzed and evaluated to determine its usefulness, credibility, consistency and adequacy. The outcome was then compared in order to get more revelation on challenges of strategy implementation at Strathmore University. The findings provided an insight on how private universities should carry out a successful strategy implementation. The study found that some aspects of organization culture, lack of involvement of staff, insufficient communication, organization policies, competition and resources are some of the major challenges faced by the University in its strategy implementation. Various ways were found to be used by the university to cope with the challenges in its strategy implementation. They include, used of standardized key performance indicators, carrying out staff training to equip the staff with skills, proper allocation of resources, improving on information technology, and culture change among others. Conclusions were drawn and specific recommendations made. If adopted, findings of this study will help the University to manage their strategies as well as successfully implement them. Among the recommendations were; the university should involve all its staff in strategy implementation to encourage ownership among the staff, management avails resources needed for strategy implementation, the top management to drive the culture of the organization and focusing on a lean, flat responsive, and innovative organization structure among others. This study though deeply researched could not have been finalized without limitations. The study covered a period of three months and this duration could not allow the researcher to collect enough data for comprehensive analysis. It only focused on the extent of strategy implementation and the challenges encountered thus ignoring other important areas like effectiveness of strategy implementation. The other limitation was the presence of organizational rules that do not allow release of information to the public hence it was difficult to obtain some of the useful information.