Strategic Management Practices in Government Funded Youth Small and Medium Enterprises in Kisumu Town East Constituency, Kenya

Abstract

Coping with challenges from the external environment has called on firms to rethink their modes of operation, making organizations, small or large, adopt strategic management practices to enable them to survive. The purpose of this study was to establish strategic management practices adopted by the government funded youth SMEs in Kisumu Town East Constituency. The study adopted a descriptive research design on a target population of all the Government funded youth SMEs in the Constituency which was 70. Census approach was adopted in choosing the management staff from each SME. Semi-structured questionnaires were used in collecting data and descriptive analysis technique involving the use of frequencies, percentage, mean and standard deviation used to analyze the data. Inferential statistics through t-test was also used to test the significance of relationships between variables of interest. The study findings show that many SMEs had policy documents on mission and vision, had systematic communication and reward for strategy implementation, established strategy control mechanism and review of strategic plans though no corrective action plan was in place. The study concludes that the SMEs espoused strategic management practices although they applied the same in ad hoc manner; had well laid down strategy formulation process as opposed to strategy implementation and evaluation process. The study recommends that the Government should establish policies requiring the beneficiaries of its funds to have 10 year strategic plans. The study also recommends that all SMEs should adopt strategic management practices to stay competitive and come up with proper corrective mechanism to ensure that deviations from original plans are reigned-in and strategies or plans are responsive to changes in business environment.