Kenyan businesses and company executives have been urged to embrace innovation to ward off fierce competition from disruptors.
Addressing the conference, participants of the 2016 Annual Leadership Summit which opened in Nairobi Thursday the Kenya Institute of Management (KIM) chief executive David Muturi warned that businesses that fail to innovate will not survive.
“The stiff competition is not coming from players in the industry but without and therefore it is an area that requires a lot of reflection. CEOs should be ready such that as and when disruption occurs, their businesses are not paralysed,” said Mr Muturi.
“Disruption” was defined as the situation where smaller companies with fewer resources successfully challenge established incumbent businesses. Mr Muturi pointed out that it is very difficult to predict disruption because most times it is coming from the least expected quarters like technology.
He however said that continuous innovation could guarantee growth, value creation and higher profit margins long into the future.
Innovation, Mr Muturi said, should be applied at the production stage and on to the products and services and to marketing and customer service functions.
Some of the recent industry disruptions cited at the function include mobile money transfer services which are change the banking industry. Most banks in Kenya have lately been entering into partnerships, or investing in financial technology companies. Other remarkable disruptions have been witnessed in the transport, media and education sectors.
Social networking sites like WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter are threatening revenues of mobile operators, media companies and courier firms. Newspaper companies have also had to employ digital technologies to capture online readers. E-commerce sites have also changed the face of retail as tech savvy Kenyans opt to shop online.
Uber, the much-feted transportation company whose mobile application connects consumers who need taxi services with drivers who are willing to provide them has enjoyed rapid growth in Kenya transforming the taxi business.
