| dc.description.abstract | The sugar industry is currently facing numerous challenges. The sugar firms operate in a very
dynamic environment and therefore must devise creative strategies to stay competitive. The
status of the industry in Kenya is influenced by both internal and external factors. The external
factors are the challenges facing the sugar industry at a global level while internal factors are
country specific and are multidimensional. This study sought to assess and determine the level of
preparedness of the sugar firms in Kenya ahead of the lapse of COMESA safeguards in February
2014.This was achieved by establishing the challenges facing the sugar firms, Competitive
Strategies that the sugar firms have adopted in their operations, and the impact of the same in
their performance. The study adopted a cross -sectional survey design with all the operating
sugar firms in the industry being selected for the study. Kenya Sugar Board as a regulating
authority was also included in the study. Data collection was via structured questionnaires with
closed, open-ended type of questions. Three managers from each factory, preferably from the
marketing, planning and finance departments were required to fill up the questionnaire. Data
analysis included both qualitative and quantitative techniques. Target population of this study
was the all the operating sugar companies in Kenya. The completed questionnaires were edited
for completeness and consistency. The data was then coded to enable the responses to be
grouped into various categories. Frequency distribution tables and bar charts were used to
generate outputs. The study found out that the sugar industry was faced with numerous
challenges such as high cost of production; unregulated cheap imports, obsolete technology,
capacity underutilization and cane poaching. The study concluded that the sugar factories were
not ready or prepared to effectively compete with the international sugar producers by the end of
February 2014.The study recommended that the government should speed up the privatization
process of the state owned millers so as to make them more effective and efficient in their
operations. Having Boards of Directors and management team that are serious, can enable the
mills attain profitability. However, to attain regional and international competitiveness, the mills
need a massive injection of capital and an upgrade of technology. The second recommendation
was that the companies should enhance the product base in order to increase their revenues
bases. Co-generation must be adopted by all mills and greater efforts must be applied in other
diversification activities relating to downstream processing of sugar by-products, including
ethanol for the sector to attain overall competitiveness. Thirdly the study recommended that
factories needed to effectively manage supply chain and adequately invest in research and
development with an aim of having high yielding and early maturing cane varieties. The last
recommendation was for the rehabilitation, modernization and expansion of the factories in order
to maintain sufficient capacity for the production of sugar that would meet domestic
consumption requirements and even surplus for export. Therefore the Kenyan sugar sector must
address its competitiveness regionally and internationally, and not competitiveness among Kenya
sugar producers themselves. The sector players and all stakeholders must move away from using
national parameters to measure success or improvement, but rather adopt regional standards and
operational parameters and efficiencies attained by other regional producers. | en_US |
