| dc.description.abstract | As the knowledge economy expands and global interconnectedness increase,
complexity in businesses grows exponentially. Consequently, organizational
managers increasingly feel the pressure to proactively manage the complexity by
constructing control systems that not only function in complex environments, but also
adapt and evolve along with them (Edgeman et al., 1999). As a result, operational
excellence has become the number one concern for many executives in order to
ensure long-term profitability and consistency. The purpose of the study was to
establish the influence of operational excellence strategy on the performance of
Syngenta East Africa Limited. The study respondents were 8 top management
employees in Syngenta East Africa Limited. An interview guide was used for data
collection. Qualitative data was analysed using content analysis, through developing a
thematic framework from the key issues, concepts and themes emanating from the
open ended questions while the quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive
statistics through SPSS v.20. Thereafter, the findings were presented in the form of
tables and in prose form. The study established that Syngenta East Africa Limited had
to a great extent adopted various operational excellence strategies including emphasis
on employees’ development and involvement, emphasis on continuous learning and
teamwork, customer focus, putting in place efficient delivery systems, having an
effective and visionary leadership, investments in information technology to drive
innovation, engaging in mutually beneficial and synergy creating alliances and
partnerships, with a view of attaining a competitive edge in its target market, to
enhance the quality of products offered and customer service and to ensure continuous
improvement in its operations. The study also found out that these OE strategies had a
significant influence on the performance of SEAL. The study concluded that the
operational excellence (OE) strategies adopted by SEAL had a significant influence
on its performance in that the OE strategies enabled alignment of people, processes,
and technology that helped the organization optimize resources, opportunities, and
performance; they enabled the company and its leadership to continuously improve all
areas of performance, including decision-making, on-going investment, profitability,
customer and partner services and human resources capabilities; they helped the firm
to create leaders who have the skills and capabilities to train and develop their teams
in applying continuous improvement tools and techniques in their daily jobs; they
placed emphasis on stronger teamwork and cooperation among the staff and
departments, excellent production and delivery systems, innovation, clarity on roles
and responsibilities and alignment of organizational vision, mission and objectives
with the its daily activities. The study recommended that the firm’s management
should organize for seminars and workshops where its employees can be trained on
the concept of operational excellence and how well to implement it to ensure that they
possess the required expertise in the implementation of the concept in the firm and
thereby positively contributing to its success in the organization. The study further
recommended that the firm’s management should initiate a review of all the OE
strategies being implemented by the firm with a view of identifying the most
important limiting factors impeding the successful implementation of the OE
strategies in order to ensure that the constraints are systematically eliminated so that
the firm can leap optimal benefits of embracing operational excellence strategies. | en_US |
