Logistics Management Practices and Performance of Leading Supermarkets in Nairobi County, Kenya

Abstract

Majority of the supermarkets in Nairobi city are currently facing challenges including poor coordination of materials, overstocking resulting into opportunity cost due to tied up capital and poor information flow within logics personnel. These challenges have adversely affected most of these supermarkets as some of them including Nakumatt Holdings and Ukwala have been forced out of the business. The link between logistic management practices and performance was explored in this investigation. The specific focus of the inquiry was adopted logistic management practices and their link with performance of the leading supermarkets in Nairobi, Kenya. The adopted design was descriptive survey targeting 37 supermarkets supported by census. Views of the participants in the investigation were gathered as aided by first hand sources with analysis being conducted descriptively and inferentially. Tabular forms helped in presentation. It was noted that material handling practices was the highly practiced aspect of logistic management among the leading supermarkets in Nairobi County followed by warehousing management practices, packaging practices, transportation management practices, information management practices, inventory management practices and lastly order processing practices. The study concluded that the adoption of logistic management practices has significantly impacted on customer satisfaction and lead times of the leading supermarkets in Nairobi. The study recommended that the marketing managers of the leading supermarkets in Nairobi should leverage on material handling practices so as to improve customer satisfaction as a measure of performance of their respective firms. In order to optimize lead time, the logistic managers of the leading supermarkets in Nairobi should seek to continuously improve on order processing practices in place. The study was limited by Covid-19 pandemic especially with regard to data collection. The study recommended for further studies on other firms like the leading pharmaceutical firms, the manufacturing Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) or the online shopping malls like Jumia and Kilimall.