Zimbabwe is currently experiencing an economic recession that is quite close to economic downturn for almost ten consecutive or successive years, the national economy has been under stress registering due to natural phenomena, that is, droughts and floods, and local and foreign economic uncontrollables. All sectors of the economy have been affected to the extend that the was a need to continually innovate strategies that were to keep both manufacturing sectors and retail sectors afloat due to ever-changing environments.The retail management which has been a relatively easy corporate function in Zimbabwe, before the economic meltdown, has suddenly became an elusive task due to the lack of adequate and reliable supplies of inventory from manufacturers. Local manufacturing has been an uphill task to do due to lack of working capital in the economy, local banks no longer have the capacity to lend the manufacturing sector adequate funding to prop up their operations and global technologies has overtaken our capital equipment that leaves the manufacturing sector to produces at uncompetive costs.These management factors has lead to shortages of locally produced products, retail markets being flooded by imports which are landing in Zimbabwe cheaper than locally produced products, shortages of raw materials to produce as suppliers regionally and globally are unwilling to extend lines of credit to Zimbabwean companies, regulatory authorities have not helped either by crafting legislation that are adaptive to prevailing economic climate to protect the local industry, natural phenomena have compounded our situation as national reserves were depleted that self sustainability as an economy became difficult to manage.
On the strategic management front the academia was found wanting as there is a need to keep innovating strategies that will to keep the economy ticking in the hyperinflationary environment error and now in the multi-currency error by innovating strategies that bring economic growth through efficiency and profitability to the local industry. With the introduction of the multi-currency system there has been a strategy shift in terms of export marketing as the companies are opting to do “ local exporting” due to lack of export incentives from the policy makers.Those that are actively exporting are either looking for strategic positions or avoiding head-on competition with imports from other countries. It is therefore a challenge to the academia and other fellow researchers to find suitable or viable strategic models for managing supply chain in the manufacturing sector who manufactures for both domestic market and export market that motivates companies at large to generate revenue from exports to increase capacity utilization in the local industry.There has to be a policy cohesion that encourages local production and exports as opposed to the current policies under current environment that seems to discourage local production and exports favouring importation and distribution. This will render Zimbabwe as a net importer and merely a market for other countries reflecting a negative impact on employment, economic growth and sustainable development , |Recession in Global perspective |Between 2008 and 2009 the world over experienced an economic recession that affected the performance of world economies.
Countries like Japan, for example, from 1986 to 1991 suffered economic recession which the mainly described as a lost decade or the “baburu keiki” meaning the “bubble economy” The global economic recession also affected the Asia – Pacific region and the developing economies that limited their progress towards their achievements on the Millennium Development Goals, according to Australia’s AusAID bulleting of 10 January 2010.
