Challenges Facing Innovation Strategy Implementation at Equity Bank of Kenya

Abstract

Implementing innovations is a challenging and high risk task for many organizations. Therefore, it is not surprising that being innovative is generally considered to be key drivers of organizational success. Before the potential benefits of implementing the new idea, practice or technology can be realized, management faces the challenge of ensuring organization members accept the innovation. A number of challenges also exist in the process of innovating in an organization and for success to be achieved in the whole innovation process, then a deliberate move will have to be made to address these challenges. The purpose of the study was to determine the innovation challenges facing equity bank. The study adopted a case study research design in which an interview guide was used to collect data while content analysis was used in analyzing the data. The findings show that the bank undertakes two major types of innovation namely product and process innovation and from the innovation strategy that it has employed, the bank has been successful in introducing a number of products in the market that were positively received. However, the challenges that face the organization in its innovation strategy include, in adequate communication, market focused learning capability, scale of entrepreneurship, lack of adequate resources and the type of leadership.