Strategic Planning in the Palestinian Telecommunication Sector and its Impact on Competitionرسالة ماجستير

Abstract

This research examined to what extent telecommunication sector in Palestine use strategic planning as a competition tool. Also the study identified the serious obstacles of Palestinian telecommunication companies, and to identify the impact of strategic planning on competitive advantage at the Palestinian Telecommunication sector. This study adopted a cross- sectional design, based on questionnaires. The study design involved observation of a representative sample of directors in Palestinian telecommunication sector and employees of the planning Dept. at the ministry of telecommunications. It employed descriptive and inferential design. The questionnaire consisted of (101) questions distributed in (4) sections (demographic variables, the reality of strategic planning, level of competitive advantage and obstacles to strategic planning). This study used different statistical techniques to analyze the data, once the data was collected; they were analyzed using the following data analysis techniques. The findings have provided empirical support for the debate that competitive advantage is positively and significantly impacted by strategic planning by different dimensions particularly vision & mission, internal environment, external environment and strategic control and performance evaluation. These dimensions were found to be the most applied and practiced in telecommunication sector in Palestine. On the other hand, managers and the employees in these sector should highly focusing on having the capability to orient employees to implement the company's vision, also what are the necessary practices for making an effective competitive advantage using the employees vision to unify all employees‟ efforts toward achieving organization purposes, in order to reach a superior competitive advantage and finally having the capability to read the future to develop strategies on the long term. vi Based on the data analysis and the discussion demonstrated before, the study recommended that the necessity for the Palestinian Telecommunication Sector to comply with the plans, and the organization's interest in quick gains must be less important, the weakness of the Palestinian network in certain areas because of several factors must be treated and solved, and organizations should rely on continuous strategic planning for their future operations in order to achieve a competitive advantage that will help the organization achieve its future objectives.