Innovation management in Kenya's manufacturing sector

Abstract

Managers in companies constantly strive to increase efficiency, implement best practice and deliver increased shareholder value. They seek to improve cash flow through efficiencies of scale and cost reductions measures but there are limits to cost saving. The best way to create value and sustainable growth in firm is to innovate ahead of the competition.

The study explored innovation management in Kenya's manufacturing sector. It was based on exploratory study design and sought to explore answers to three questions: to what extent firms in Kenya's manufacturing sector recognize the importance of innovation? What are the main drivers of innovation in firms in Kenya's manufacturing sector? And which model of innovation used by these firms? To achieve the study objectives a survey was carried out and questionnaires were administered to selected firms in the manufacturing sector and the data collected was analyzed.

The findings indicate that the main drivers of innovation in manufacturing sector are external factors with competition topping the list. While innovation was driven by mostly eternal factors the major sources of innovation that firms relied on are internal. It was also found that there was little fmancial investment set for innovation. From the fmdings a model for innovation was developed. The researcher recommended that for firms to realize meaningful innovation financial innovation must be increased to at least 10% of the revenue. The firms should also rely on every employee in the firm for ideas and document them so that it's easy to implement the ideas.