dc.description.abstract | Globally, the insurance industry has enjoyed strong business conditions over the last few years
but worsening economic outlook will likely pose considerable challenges in the years ahead.
These challenges will be especially pronounced in the property and casualty segment, where
growing pricing pressure as the market softens will drive a need for cost-cutting and greater
efficiency (Deloitte, 2008). Due to the afore-mentioned, although insurance is a mature industry,
driving profitable top-line growth will be difficult owing to increased competition from global
players and companies from other industries that produce either same or substitute products and
services. While profitable growth is the key to success in a mature industry like insurance, it can
be prohibitively difficult to achieve through conventional strategies simply because the industry
is mature (Deloitte, 2008). It is vital that insurance executives take a fresh look at the industry
and seek fundamental change at all levels of the organization, from its people strategy to its
client and product strategy to its processes and infrastructure achieving these will be difficult is
appropriate innovation strategy is not put in place (Carrie, 2008).
The study sought to establish the innovation strategies adopted by insurance companies in
Kenya.The research design employed in this study was a survey method the entire population
was undertaken covering 43 insurance companies. The study relied heavily on primary data
obtained through the use of semi-structure questionnaires and the analysis was done in terms of
descriptive statistics.From the findings the study concluded that companies with strong technology-enabled
innovation strategies are more likely to secure competitive advantage and create superior
shareholder value. The study also concludes that a good technology-enabled innovation strategy
should clearly deconstruct the reasons why a company is (or will be) successful.
The study recommends that insurance companies need to develop robust technology-enabled
innovation strategies that define how a company source’s and develops technology to help
deliver compelling new products, services, customer experiences and business models while
simultaneously creating barriers to entry | en |