Challenges and practices of strategic change management of insurance firms in Kenya

Historically, insurance companies targeted the middle and upper classes who could afford \nto pay their premiums. However, the increasing cost of living has obligated insurance \ncompanies operating in Kenya to alter their business models to maintain revenues. With \nmore people willing to take out insurance today, emerging risks are forcing the insurance \nindustry to constantly expand its range of products and change its management approach. \nThese changes in the operating environment have forced managers in insurance firms to \nadopt change management strategies to mitigate disruption to their business processes. \nThe study had two objectives which sought to determine the challenges of managing \nstrategic change faced by insurance firms in Kenya and secondly to establish the \nstrategies adopted by insurance firms in Kenya in managing change. A survey research \ndesign was used for this study to determine the industry practices and challenges in the \nmanagement of strategic change and the researcher used a structured questionnaire to \nmeasure responses in the study. From the findings, the study concludes that the \nimportance of communication for change is not only informing, motivating and \ncoordinating but also managing employee expectations. The study also concludes that the \nmajor obstacle to organizational growth is managers’ inability to change their attitudes \nand behavior as rapidly as their organizations require. Even when managers intellectually \nunderstand the need for changes in the way they operate, they sometimes are emotionally \nunable to make the transition. The study further concludes that lack of change \nmanagement resources and planning also pose as challenges to effective change \nmanagement. These include insufficient resources available to conduct the necessary \nplanning and implementation, the lack of a formal change management approach and the \nlack of change management knowledge within the team. The study recommends that \nfurther research should be done on the policy measures that can be strategically \ndeveloped in order to enhance the success of insurance companies. Further study should \nlook at how to mitigate the challenges that insurance companies encounter. By so doing, \nit will encourage and ensure the success of insurance companies. The study further \nrecommends that a similar study should be done to investigate the challenges facing \nchange management practices adoption by insurance firms in Kenya. The study also \nrecommends that managers should provide channels and opportunities for employees to \ngather feedback about their own participation in change programs. In relation to this, \nface-to-face communication in seeking employees’ views and concerns is highly \nrecommended.