THE EFFECT OF CONTRACT PLANNING ON SERVICE DELIVERY BY WELTHUNGERHILFE: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY.

Abstract

Background

This study aims to examine the effect of contract planning on service delivery by Welthungerhilfe.

Methodology

A cross-sectional case study design adopting both quantitative and qualitative approaches was used. This study targeted a sample of 100 respondents. A simple random sampling technique was used to select the users’ department staff at the Welthungerhilfe. Convenient sampling was used to select the service providers. A purposive sampling technique was used to select the different contract managers.

Results

There was a strong positive relationship (rho = .646) between contract planning and service delivery whereby more contract planning was related to better service delivery and vice versa. Contract planning accounted for a 41.7% variance in service delivery. Welthungerhilfe ’s contracting planning was compromised during the setting of overall objectives, developing contracting strategies, and outlining contracting tasks and schedules. Thus, these contributed to poor service delivery by Welthungerhilfe in terms of inefficiency, ineffectiveness, and unreliability. Service delivery was inefficient because services were rarely delivered on time and service delivery was wasteful.

Conclusion

Contract planning plays an important role in Welthungerhilfe's service delivery. The positive relationship indicated that good contract planning leads to better service delivery while poor contract planning leads to poor service delivery. This shows that if contract planning is well handled in organizations, service delivery will be poor. 

Recommendations

Welthungerhilfe should improve its contract planning to provide better service to the Kampala community and consult all its stakeholders and develop its contract strategy in harmony with the organization’s overall procurement strategy to ensure the supplier meets the minimum performance criteria.