Implementation of strategy at Kenya roads board

Abstract

Strategy implementation is complex and is accompanied with a lot of challenges that organizations need to manage to ensure smooth execution of their strategic plans. Strategies are critical in organizational functioning, but whereas most organizations have good strategies, successful strategy implementation remains a major challenge. This challenge needs to be addressed, because even the best strategy would be ineffective if not implemented successfully and hence the overall results may not be achieved as expected. The objective of the study was to determine how Kenya Roads Board implements its strategy and to establish the measures taken by KRB to deal with challenges of strategy implementation. The research design was a case study and the data collection tool was an interview guide. Data was collected from the respondents through personal interviews and content analysis was used to analyze the collected data which was qualitative in nature. The respondents interviewed were from the four topmost levels of management in the organization. The findings of the study indicated that KRB has a well-articulated strategy that has adopted strategic management practices such as continuous monitoring and evaluation systems, employees reward mechanisms, use of annual action plans, among others. The study also established that Strategy implementation appears to be the most difficult part of strategic management process and some strategies failed at the implementation stage. Some of the challenges to strategy implementation identified were insufficient resources, and poor communication. However the greatest challenge to strategy implementation in KRB was from external stakeholders and to a larger extent government decisions which impact directly on the organization. This has delayed the implementation of some strategies, while others had to be dropped midway as government policy change