ASSESSMENT OF FACTORS INFLUENCING STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION ON FLORICULTURE PRODUCTION IN KENYA.

Abstract

There has been a great demand of Kenyan flowers which has put pressure on producers to meet the ever growing demand in Europe.Kenya has been faced with fierce competition from other flower exporting countries, namely Colombia, Ethiopia, and Israel. A number of flower firms in the country are trying to implement strategies that deliver competitive advantage such as increasing production, cutting costs and complying with the cut-flower industry standards. Business environmental challenges have put pressure on the players in the Flower-Cut industry to formulate and implement alternative strategies to meet customer demands and achieve competitive advantage. Therefore, to meet the increased demand, and stay competitive, flower farms have been forced to formulate and implement strategies that will give them a competitive advantage.The general objective of the study was to reveal the strategies adopted by various flower farms in Kenya, with the specific objectives being to determine the approaches used to implement the strategies, how strategy implementation affects production,the barriers to effective strategy implementation. The target population was 98 flower farms registered with the Kenya flower council in the country. A sample size of 27 flower farms was derived using stratified random sampling. The sampling frame comprised of mostly management level employees, who were conversant with strategies being implemented by the farms. The collected data was then analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).The findings revealed that majority of the flower farms have adopted focus strategy as their base strategy and concentrated growth as their grand strategy.It was also revealed that strategy formulation is a reserve for top management and only line managers are involved in strategy formulation. Most farms in turn therefore employed the collaborative approach.It is recommended that farm workers should have a sense of ownership to the strategies that they are implementing. This can be achieved by involving them in strategy formulation, since most employees are not involved in the strategy formulation, which is mainly a preserve for management.