Effect of Strategic Management Practices on Service Delivery by the surveillance Department: A Case of KEBS

Globalization has forced organization to change their operating strategies and adopt to the business environment in order to stay relevant. All organizations have moved to considering their service delivery as the new measure of organizational performance. More attention is thus shifting to factors that affect service delivery of various organizations as a whole or their core departments. This calls on the standards regulating agencies and more so the departments concerned with this to be at their utmost performance thus at their best service delivery. The most notable of these organizations is Kebs within the Kenyan context. The market surveillance department has the most important role in ensuring compliance to the standards. However, the performance of this department is not yet at par with the required standards under a global economy. Studies have thus been conducted to determine the reasons for this poor performance. Most of these studies fall short by giving mere symptoms of the problem but not the root cause which is strategic management. The main objective of the study was therefore to determine the effect of strategic management practices on service delivery by the surveillance department of Kebs this was supported by specific objectives which were to determine the effects of strategic formulation on service delivery by the surveillance departments of Kenya bureau of standards; to determine the effects of strategic planning on service delivery by the surveillance departments of Kenya bureau of standards; to determine the effects of strategy implementation on service delivery by the surveillance departments of Kenya bureau of standards and to determine the effects of strategic evaluation on service delivery by the surveillance departments of Kenya bureau of standards. © 2017 Elixir All rights reserved. Elixir Mgmt. 104 (2017) 46006-46016 Management Available online at www.elixirpublishers. com (Elixir International Journal) YUSSUF DAYIB ALI and FRIDAH THEURI / Elixir Mgmt. 104 (2017) 46006-46016 46007 In Kenya, quality standards are increasingly being used by regulatory and other concerned agencies to ensure that the goods and services which are provided to users meet minimum quality, technical, safety and health requirements. Quality is a pillar for the socio-economic development of any country. In this era of rapidly growing international trade and globalization, the Kenya Bureau of Standards is committed to advancing standardization and allied quality facets through spreading the knowledge and application of quality standards to all producers and consumers of goods and services in the country. The vision of the Bureau is to be a global leader in standards based solutions that deliver quality and confidence. This is the reason kebs has introduced a market surveillance department, (Kebs, 2014). Market surveillance hereby refers to the activities carried out and measures taken by public authorities to ensure that products comply with the requirements set out in the relevant technical legislation and do not endanger health, safety or any other aspect of public interest protection. The responsibility for market surveillance rests with the industry regulators and the standards regulatory authorities of the respective countries. It is for this reason that Kebs has the mandate of market surveillance in the country. These authorities need to have adequate resources at their disposal to ensure that they can deal with the volume of imported products, the needed dangerous product notifications and the technical complexity of the regulations and the standards. Moreover, marketing surveillance systems are based on information received from the field, (Massod, 2010). Free market access of products worldwide is currently in development in nearly all product sectors over the globe either in the consumer field or even in the industrial field. The intentions of economic operators are clearly to ensure compliance to legal requirements and to limit cost of importing and other conformity assessment costs. Compliance with mandatory safety requirements is a requirement which is legitimate and in all cases evidence of (some) compliance must be provided by the Economic Operator, (Mugambi, 2013). Regardless of conformity assessment system used to show compliance to its regulations, a country has to maintain a market surveillance system due to two reasons. First, illegal and unsafe products should not be allowed to be put on and remain on the market. Secondly, fair market conditions should prevail. Suppliers which follow the rules and bear the administrative costs and delays due to regulations should not be disadvantaged compared to those who do not comply to the rules, (Eliezer et al, 2007) Moreover, in the life time of a product, compliance to mandatory requirements may be requested at the design/production stage which is referred to as pre-market control and at the post-market surveillance stage also referred to as market surveillance. However in kebs, both functions are done by the marketing surveillance department, (Kebs 2015). Therefore, market surveillance is more and more recognized as an essential step in the process of putting a product on the market such as the compliance with essential requirements must be checked after the product was put on the market to ensure compliance with the technical regulations, (G.O.K, 2015) Moreover, in the life time of a product, compliance to mandatory requirements may be requested at the design/production stage which is referred to as pre-market control and at the post-market surveillance stage also referred to as market surveillance. However in kebs, both functions are done by the marketing surveillance department, (Kebs 2015). Therefore, market surveillance is more and more recognized as an essential step in the process of putting a product on the market such as the compliance with essential requirements must be checked after the product was put on the market to ensure compliance with the technical regulations, (G.O.K, 2015) Besides, market surveillance is carried out by exchanges and securities commissions to detect such market manipulation by market participants. The manipulative practices are varied in nature, although there are more “commonplace” practices that are easily identifiable, Free market access of products worldwide is currently in development in nearly all product sectors over the globe either in the consumer field or even in the industrial field, (Eliezer et al, 2007). The intentions of economic operators are clearly to ensure compliance to legal requirements and to limit cost of importing and other conformity assessment costs. Compliance with mandatory safety requirements is a requirement which is legitimate and in all cases evidence of (some) compliance must be provided by the Economic Operator, (Mugambi, 2013). Locally, the demand for regulatory services has greatly expanded and, at the regional level the EAC SQMT Act and the EAC Metrology Bill require participation of all industry regulators. At the international level, the need for links to and networking with Standardization, Metrology and Conformity Assessment institutions in other countries and regions in the world has grown substantially. Consequently the ability of the industry regulators to achieve its Plan objectives depended on key success factors such as effective information and knowledge management; capacity to attract and retain high caliber staff; dynamic and proactive leadership, customer orientation, and sufficient and well equipped laboratories. This has made industry regulators come up with new departments to address specific result oriented initiatives. The most recent department is the marketing surveillance department, (Kebs, 2015). However, kebs has been poorly performing in monitoring the standards of products especially products entering the country. This is because the quality and standards inspection department has been far overstretched in its mandate calling for other departments to assume specific roles thus relieving some of the functions from the department which has historically been doing almost everything in standards assurance thus loosing on unity of focus. In addition kebs has been relying on public goodwill in getting information about counterfeit goods and substandard commodities in the market. Besides, there has been an influx of substandard and counterfeit products in the country mainly from the Chinese cheap imports and the fraudulent business men in Kenya who specialize in counterfeit goods most notably being the alcohol industry as well as most consumer goods. The distributors and retailers are however reluctant in providing the required information as well as ensuring the products on their shelves are genuine save for the supermarkets. This thus calls for kebs to go out into the market and constantly monitor the goods on the shelves to ensure compliance with the standards. This has been the rational for the introduction of a market surveillance department in Kebs. It is on this background that the study will seek to determine the impact this department has on performance of kebs Standards, Metrology and Conformity YUSSUF DAYIB ALI and FRIDAH THEURI / Elixir Mgmt. 104 (2017) 46006-46016 46008 assessment are important to an economy in a number of interdependent ways which support economic development through the production of competitive products and also enhance the quality of life through the promotion of safety, quality, health and environmental protection, (kebs, 2015). Consequently an effective Standardization infrastructure is a vital pillar for a country‟s sustainable socio-economic development. The Kenya Government recognizes the importance of a quality infrastructure and has shown commitment to its development as indicated in its major economic policy papers such as the ERS, the Export Strategy Paper and the Kenya Vision 2030. This heightens the important role