Strategic Responses Adopted by Nairobi City Water and Sewarage Company Limited to Changes in the Environment

Abstract

Organizations exist and operate in the context of complex environment with commercial, political, economic, social- cultural, technological, ecological and legal variables that are rapidly changing. The dynamism of the environment provides both opportunities and threats to an organization. While all organizations private or public experience environmental impacts on their operations, the effects may differ between different contexts. Coping with the environmental changes has called on firms to refine their strategies that match the challenges to environment. This research was a case study whose objectives were to determine the challenges faced by Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company Ltd (NCWSC) in relation to the environment and how the organization responded to them. The objectives were achieved by collecting primary data using a structured interview guide which was presented through face to face interview. The respondents were both the management and unionisable cadre. The results of the study indicated that there were a number of challenges in the political, technological, economic, human resource management, existing infrastructure and legislation. Various strategies were adopted by the company to adapt to these challenges which included focusing, drawing long term strategic plans, ISO certification, rebranding, technological advancement and budget reviews. A large number of studies have already demonstrated the importance of strategy- environment fit and suggested that the strategic fit has strong performance implications. The findings of this therefore are in agreement with those from previous studies. The study further recommends that NCWSC should engage in more strategies like diversification as a response to more customer satisfaction.