Influence of Strategic Innovation on Performance of Telecommunication Firms: A case of Safaricom Company
Keywords:
Product development, cost management, PerformanceAbstract
Strategic innovation is the implementation of new ideas, processes, products or services. Strategic innovation is a future-focused business development framework that identifies breakthrough growth opportunities, accelerates business decisions and creates near-term, measurable impact within the context of a longer-term vision for sustainable competitive advantage. Strategic innovation challenges an organization to look beyond its established business. Strategic innovation is an important factor for organization, sustainable competitive advantage and financial performance. As today's business environment becomes increasingly competitive, business organizations are becoming more aggressive and dynamic in identifying competitive strategies that will ensure profitable existence. Innovations provide firms a strategic orientation to overcome the problems they encounter while striving to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. Innovation as a term is not only related to products and processes, but is also related to marketing and organization. Telecommunication companies in Kenya operate in a heavily regulated environment that requires certain degree of uniformity on their part in disclosing critical information. Continuous change, hyper competition, changing demographics and customer needs require these telecommunication companies to build adaptability competency for survival and fostering of organizational performance. It has been noted that performance of firms in the telecommunication industry in Kenya has been fluctuating particularly because of the volatility that characterizes the environmental factors in this industry. Safaricom Limited, which is the largest mobile telephony company in Kenya, has not been spared by the volatility in the telecommunication industry and the attendant challenge of predictability of performance. The study was guided by Resource Based Theory and Kaizen Costing System Theory. The paper used a desk study review methodology where relevant empirical literature was reviewed to identify main themes. The results indicated there was positive and significant relationship between product development and the performance. The study recommended that Safaricom (K) Limited should consistently analyze and measure their services operations in an effort to enhance operations efficiency and improved performance.
Key words: Product development, cost management, Performance
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