Influence of Digital Signage Usage on Product Sale among Leading Supermarkets in Kenya

In the changing business environment, retailers are always searching new strategies to attract and hold customers. Digital signage is a very attractive medium for advertising and general communication in open spaces. It has been adopted by many business sectors that have benefited from the advantages it offers. This study sought to establish the effect digital signage has on the sale of products among leading supermarkets in Kenya. The objective of this study was to find out the influence of digital signage on product sales among leading supermarkets in Kenya. This study adopted a descriptive research design and respondents were drawn from Tuskys, Uchumi and Nakumatt supermarkets. They included managers, assistant managers, supervisors and merchandisers.  A questionnaire was used for data collection.  Data collected was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS). The data was presented in Tables and Figures using frequencies and percentages. The findings show that digital signage does influence the sales of products. It was also found out that digital signage was perceived to be helpful by informing the respondents of the products and influencing their purchase decisions. The location of digital signage was found to be critical to the success of the advertisement. However, positioning of the screens and advertisement content for relevance and completeness were the recommended remedies

Analysis of Related Diversification Strategy on Organizational Performance of Cement Firms in Kenya

Cement manufacturing firms in Kenya have experienced a decline in performance. The firms have turned to innovative products diversification such as pre-cast concrete paving blocks and precast molded products. This research purposed to analyse related diversification strategy influence on organizational performance of Kenyan cement firms’. The study was backed up by resource-based review theory. The study was done in cement industrial sector in Kenya and all cement manufacturing firms were studied. The study used descriptive cross-sectional research design in collecting data relating to the research objective. The target population of research was all the marketing, finance, production managers and assistant managers from the same departments who were used as important informants. The study had a total of 108 managers and supervisors as its target population. This being a census study, all the marketing, finance, production managers and their assistants were used in this study. In piloting of study tool, respondents were nominated from Savannah cement and were having the same noticeable features as those of main study. The scholar used questionnaire as a tool to collect data from the key informants. The quantitative technique was used to analyse data where descriptive and inferential statistics were used. Related diversification strategy has significant influence on the performance of Kenyan cement firms. The related products are produced using same machinery making the cement companies to realize economies of scale for better performance. Firms aiming at increasing their performance should adopt related diversification strategy to meet the customers’ demands. Keywords: Related Diversification Strategy, Organizational Performance, Kenyan cement firms DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/14-22-03 Publication date: November 30th 202

An Assessment of Organizational Structure on Performance of Public Health Service Providers in Western Kenya

Organizations have for long known that in order to be successful they must develop a strategy then appropriately align important factors such as skills, resources, values and staff among others so as to achieve success. If the organizational structure is not supportive of the organizational strategy then the performance of the Public Health Service Providers would not improve even with all other strategic management practices in place. However between the alignment of these components and the success lie many difficulties. This study was designed to investigate the impact of organizational structure on the performance of Public Health Service providers Western Region of Kenya. This study was intended to generate knowledge that will enable Public Health Service Providers asses the connection between organizational structure, planning process and the actual implementation so as to allow more appropriate strategic planning and desirable results. The study was conducted through a correlational descriptive survey research design covering respondents from the Government owned healthcare facilities targeting specifically, District Hospitals in Western Kenya. Qualitative and quantitative data was collected through the use of structured questionnaires. Reliability of the selected measures was done through the use of Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient due to its ability to determine internal consistency of items in a survey. The researcher tested the questionnaires on pilot group that did not form part of the main study. The pilot study enabled removal of any ambiguities hence focus the questionnaire to collect data relevant to the study. The study collected both secondary and primary using the prescribed data gathering tools to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. Data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics such as tabulations, measures of central tendency and regression analyses so as to arrive at appropriate conclusions. The study results show that organizational structure had positive and significant effect on performance of Public Health Service Providers in Western Kenya

Role of Social Media Networks in Penetration of International Markets by Small and Medium Enterprises in Kenya: a case of Small Businesses at Yaya Centre Nairobi County

By making use of electronic media and social networks, the ways of doing businesses by many SMEs in Kenya has rapidly changed and evolved. New business ventures are budding because of globalisation and this has lead to abolition of geographical barriers. Social media networks allow a business to be where the customers are. The sites rely on the habitual presence of millions of users. From the young to the elderly generations, most people spend many hours daily on sites like Face book and Twitter, watching videos on YouTube, sharing photos on Flicker and instagram among others. This helps most users to be informed about the products and services offered by a particular business online either in the same geographical position or overseas and means in which they can be able to access the products or services.  This study therefore sought to investigate whether the Kenyan Small and Medium Enterprises have followed suit to this globalization trend and whether there were tangible benefits attached to this new mode of doing business. This study used descriptive statistics and targeted a population of 65 respondents operating SMEs at Yaya centre in Nairobi. The study concluded that the  benefits of social media for internationalization include the huge exposure that company can generate, the relatively low costs associated with it, the possibilities for customer segmentation and targeting it provides and the market insight that can be gained from analyzing consumers’ online behaviour and interacting with them through social networks. For SMEs to full use social media networks in their business, the government needs to increase the diffusion of internet infrastructure and hardware required for accessing the internet. Diffusion could help SMEs in developing countries to gain access to social media networks, internationalize and this would ultimately lead to tremendous performance Keywords: social media, globalisation, SMEs, social media business strategy and Keny

Analysis of the National Strategy Implementation on Kenya’s Global Competitiveness: A Case of Trade, Tourism and Investment Strategies

The study had the main objective of analyzing the national strategy implementation effect on Kenya’s global competitiveness: A case of trade, tourism & investment strategies. The target population was public institutions and the foreign missions. The respondents were staff both in management and non-management levels involved in implementation of strategy areas to be evaluated. The data type collected for the study was primary data. The research instrument used for primary data collection was a semi structured questionnaire that had both open ended and closed questions. The two predictor variable are said to be correlated if their coefficient of correlations is greater than 0.5. The correlation matrix also indicated high correlation between the response and predictor variables, that is, Product strategy with the highest correlation followed by International market strategy, Investment strategy and Strategic review respectively. The analysis in table shows that the coefficient of determination (the percentage variation in the dependent variable being explained by the changes in the independent variables) R2 equals 0.843, that is, Strategic review, International market strategy, Product strategy, Investment strategy  explain 84.3 percent of Kenya's global competitiveness leaving only 15.7 percent unexplained. The P- value of 0.000 (Less than 0.05) implies that the model of Kenya's global competitiveness is significant at the 5 percent significance. All the independent variables were also linearly related with the dependent variable thus a model of four predictor variables could be used to rate Kenya's global competitiveness. The study found out that there exist a significant relationship between Strategic review, International market strategy, Product strategy, Investment strategy and Kenya's global competitiveness