ASSESSMENT OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES IN THE CASE OF AWASH WINE SHARE COMPANY: ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

The study aimed at assessing the strategic management practices and challenges of AWASH WINE S.C. Pertinent data was collected from directors, head of departments, and line managers of AWASH WINE S.C. by distributing questionnaires which was used to measure their agreement and disagreement on study variables. Census method was used to allow all target participants to take part in the study. The study employed descriptive research design and mixed research approach. Statistical package for social science (SPSS) software was used to process the data collected from questionnaire and analysed using descriptive statistics. The results from descriptive statistics showed that strategy formulation and environmental scanning were the two practices the company well dealt with. On the contrary, the organization was found to have weaknesses in relation to strategy implementation, and strategy monitoring and evaluation. The study also identified the major challenges associated with each strategic management practices and lack of proper knowledge and skills and incompatibility of the strategy with on ground situations mentioned as challenges for strategy formulation, challenges such as key personnel leaving the organization, misunderstanding of overall goals by employees, lack of proper knowledge and skills, lack of motivation for those which achieved the strategic plan identified major challenges associated with strategic implementation. Finally, challenges associated with strategy monitoring and evaluation were absence of effective monitoring, lack of timely feedback, lack of proper knowledge and skills, and false reports on progress. Thus, the study concluded that case organization focuses more on the strategy formulation while giving less emphasis to strategy implementation, evaluation and control. The study finally recommended the need for the company to give due attention for strategic implementation in terms of human resource capability and board support and on strategy evaluation and control with regard to performance measurement, communication and timely responsiveness to noted gaps.