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Abstract:
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The purpose of this paper is to examine how the culture of strategic planning has made Equity
bank to remain at the top of microfinance banking in Kenya, Africa and the world. Equity Bank
has revolutionized the banking concept in Kenya and has made banking accessible to majority
of the Kenyan and East African population. The bank has done well where others have failed
especially on reaching out to the bottom of the pyramid segment. Equity bank has a very strong
institutional culture of strategic planning that has helped in its growth and expansion. The
employees in the bank treat their jobs like a calling to liberate the people of Africa and its either
you fit or you don’t fit in that culture. This culture has seen employees giving their best in terms
of time and energy which has seen the company record excellent performance over the years.
The study used descriptive research design. The target group was the middle level managers in
the Bank. Semi-structured questionnaires and key informant interviews were used as the
instruments for data collection. Data was presented by the use of both descriptive and
inferential statistics. The study revealed that Equity Bank had several strategic management
practices which touched on formulation, implementation and evaluation. These included selfassessment,
competition analysis, resource allocation, strategic management procedures. The
bank had a very strong organizational culture which it leveraged on to push the strategic agenda. The study concludes by retaliating that adoption of strategic planning practices and
institutionalization of a supportive institutional culture are great drivers of organizational
performance. |