INFLUENCE OF STRATEGIC DRIVERS ON PERFORMANCE OF PETROLEUM MARKETING FIRMS IN NAIROBI COUNTY, KENYA

Abstract

This study interrogated the influence of strategic drivers on performance of petroleum marketing firms in Nairobi County, Kenya focusing on strategic organizational leadership, strategic planning, strategic resource management and strategic customer relationship management. The petroleum firms with a market share exceeding 5% that is Kenol Kobil, Vivo Energy, Total, Gulf energy and Oilibya were targeted. Officials in top and middle management levels of the selected firms were targeted. The study adopted a descriptive research design. Questionnaires were used to collect primary data and analyzed through SPSS. The study findings indicated that strategic organizational leadership, strategic planning, strategic resource management and strategic customer relationship management positively and significantly influence performance of petroleum marketing firms in Nairobi County, Kenya. These findings led to the recommendation that the petroleum marketing firms should focus on enhancing strategic organizational leadership by ensuring there is employee involvement by the firm’s top-level team in making key organizational decisions and offering directions by the top management, having a top leadership with a timely and coherent in decision making. The firms are further recommended to ensure they strategically plans their activities by establishing core values that guides a firm’s operation, having a well-planned and formulated vision and having a well-planned and formulated mission statement and having a full involvement of parties in the planning of actions plans. The firms are also recommended to ensure there is strategic resource management firm by having a well-established knowledge management structures and having human resource management practices which are well developed and practiced. In addition, they should ensure strategic customer relationship management within the firm through conducting occasional customer satisfaction surveys to assess customers’ satisfaction and having many channels of communication through which the firm collects feedback from its customers.

Key Words: Strategic Organizational Leadership, Strategic Planning, Strategic Resource Management and Strategic Customer Relationship Management