Strategic Responses Adopted by the Kenya Revenue Authority’s Customs Services Department to Changes in the External Environment

Abstract

The environment in which organizations operate is constantly changing with different factors influencing the organizations Survival and success of an organization occurs when the organization creates and maintains a match between its strategy and the environment and also between its internal capability and its strategy. Strategic response requires organizations to change their strategy to match the environment and also to redesign their internal capability to match this strategy. Strategic responses are concerned with decisions and actions meant to achieve business objectives and purpose. The Customs Services Department (CSD) is the largest of the four revenue departments of the Kenya Revenue Authority Its primary function is to collect and account for import duty and VAT on imports. The CSD is also responsible for facilitation of legitimate trade and has the mandate of protecting the society from illegal entry and exit of prohibited and dangerous goods through the land and sea border points. This study first sought toestablish ifthere are changes in the external environment in which the Customs Services Department of KRA operates and then identified the various strategic responses, if any, that the CSD adopted as a result of the changing external environment. The study collected primary and secondary data which was analysed through content analysis and presented in continuous prose. Primary data was collected through interviews guided by an interview guide The study found that the CSD faced political, economic, social, technological, ecological and legal forces from the external environment. In response, the CSD implemented various strategies meant to counteract the effects of the environmental forces.The study concludes that the various response strategies adopted by CSD were proactive to the changes in the department's external environment and recommends that although CSD has been largely successful in responding to challenges brought about by the changing environment, it should develop an effective balanced score card that ties job descriptions to the various aspects of environmental scanning and strategic response.