The Effects of Mobile Phone Technology on Logistics Performance of Clearing and Forwarding Firms in Mombasa County
Abstract
Mobile phone technology and the use of wireless technologies such as Radio Frequency
Identification (RFID) and sensors are becoming ubiquitous in logistics firms
performance. From the management of inventory movement within a warehouse to
providing real-time status updates, it is becoming a requirement to use mobile phone
technology to meet customer service expectations and raise the productivity of the
workforce. The studies main objective was to analyze the impact of mobile phone
technology on logistics performance in clearing and forwarding companies in Mombasa
county. The study adapted a descriptive cross sectional research design which was
exploratory in nature to obtain qualitative information. The target population was 535
clearing agents registered in Mombasa County. A questionnaire was the preferred
instrument for data collection. The researcher gave out 269 questionnaires and received
180 for analysis representing 67% response rate which was considered adequate.
Analysis of data is by the help of SPSS and it brought out the relationship between
mobile phone technology and logistics performance. The findings revealed that mobile
phone technology variables considered in this study namely flow of information, logistics
integration, fleet management system and warehouse and inventory management had a
positive relationship with logistics performance. The relationship was significant at 95%
confidence (p<0.05) for all the four independent variables. This shows that they are
important factors affecting logistics performance albeit at varying degrees. Furthermore,
the study found out that mobile phone technology has been adopted to a moderate extent.
Also, mobile phone technology impacts logistics performance to a large extent. More
importantly, information analysis and warehouse and inventory management were found
to have a strong positive correlation with logistics performance while logistics integration
and fleet management system had a weak relationship with logistics performance. The
study therefore recommends that the firms should increase mobile phone adoption and
make use of various fictions on offer in order to gain competitive advantage.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
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