Emergency Supply Chain Preparedness and Performance of Large Food and Beverage Manufacturing Firms in Nairobi, Kenya Amid Covid-19

Abstract

The study's purpose was to establish the influence of emergency supply chain preparedness on performance of large food and beverage manufacturing firms in Nairobi, Kenya The study had three specific objectives: to find out the extent of adoption of emergency supply chain preparedness by the large food and beverage manufacturing firms in Nairobi, Kenya , to evaluate the effect of COVID-19 pandemic measures on large food and beverage manufacturing firms in Nairobi, Kenya and to establish the relationship between emergency supply chain preparedness and performance of large food and beverage manufacturing firms in Nairobi, Kenya . The study used descriptive research design and census was carried out on all the 46 large food and beverage manufacturing firms in Nairobi, Kenya as the population was manageable. The study used primary data which was acquired through questionnaires that were sent by electronic email by in form of google forms. The findings indicate that supply chain visibility and supply chain collaboration were adopted to a large extent whereas supply chain robustness, risk management culture and creating redundancy were adopted to a moderate extent by the large food and beverage manufacturers in Nairobi, Kenya. The manufacturers were negatively impacted by the COVID-19 measures set by the government especially lockdown, curfew hours and working from home as employees were laid off and production rates also reduced. The outcome also reveals that supply chain visibility, supply chain robustness, supply chain collaboration, risk management and culture and creating redundancy all had a positive and substantial relationship with manufacturing firm’s performance as noted by the p values of less than 0.05 and thus emergency supply chain preparedness positively influences manufacturing firm’s performance in Nairobi. The study recommends that managers of large food and beverage manufacturing firms must adopt emergency supply chain preparedness practices if they are to enhance their performance as it has been noted by the findings. The managers, stakeholders and decision can use the outcome of the study to ascertain supply chain emergency preparedness practices that influences firm’s performance and capitalize on them to be able to enhance the performance even further. Future research should concentrate on the influence of emergency supply chain preparedness on firm’s performance of small, medium and large manufacturing firms in Nairobi, and not limit to just food and beverage manufacturing firms, to see if the outcome will corroborate or contradicts this study.