Strategic Management Intensity and Innovation in the Telecommunication Companies in Kenya

Abstract

There is strategic consistency when the actions of an organization are consistent with the expectations of management, and these in turn are with the market and the context. The problem with strategy implementation is the de facto success rate of the intended strategies. It was not clear how strategic management practices scanning intensity, planning flexibility, planning horizon and control attributes influenced innovation. This study sought to establish the relationship between intensity of implementing strategic management practices and innovation in a sample of 15 telecommunication companies in Kenya. A sample of 30 employees from the telecommunication companies was surveyed using questionnaires and results analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences program. The study found that the telecommunication companies in Kenya have moderately adopted strategic management intensity in their operations and strategic management intensity has moderate effect on innovation in the telecommunication companies in Kenya. From the study, explicit tracking of the policies and tactics of competitors are used by the firms. This is in order to gather information about their business environment as well as special marketing research studies, gathering of information from suppliers and other channel members, forecasting sales, customer preferences, technology, routine gathering of opinions from clients and trade magazines, government publications, news media. Shifts in economic conditions are easily changed, the market entry of new competition, shifts in customer needs and preferences as well as modifications in supplier strategies and the emergence of a new technology, political developments that affect the industry, the emergence of an unexpected threat, the emergence of an unexpected opportunity and changes in government regulations. The study recommends that the telecommunications companies should pay attention to various forces of the environment in which they operate in by looking at such issues of getting information. For the telecommunications companies to enhance their innovations they need to focus on issues of planning flexibility which involve shifts in economic conditions, market entry of new competition, shifts in customer needs and preferences as well as modifications in supplier strategies and the emergence of a new technology, political developments that affect the industry, the emergence of an unexpected threat, the emergence of an unexpected opportunity and changes in government regulations. The firms could realize increment in innovations by measuring performance against subjective strategic criteria