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TopIntroduction
Competitive advantage of any kind requires the harmonization of resources for the sustainability of any process innovations. From a theoretical perspective, assets are the resource endowments the business has accumulated, and capabilities are the glue that keeps these assets together and enables them to be deployed advantageously (Arifiani, 2019). Both assets and capabilities allow firms to make the best strategic choices for perfect competition and how to add value in customer value chain, development of new production and expansion in new markets (Nawal & Cherif, 2019). However, it should be noted that not all assets and capabilities appear strategic and thus sources of competitive advantage. Any such competitive advantage occurs only when there is a situation of resource heterogeneity and resource immobility that harmonizes the innovative process of the firm to achieve a competitive edge over its rivals (Blotch & Metclef, 2018).
Process innovation involves the usage of another or altogether upgraded creation or conveyance technique. This requires huge changes in strategies, gear or potentially programming through process development and process advancement. Process development offers the roads for securing and enhancing the quality and to spare expenses. It empowers the organization of the organizations' activities raising adequacy and productivity (Moyano-Fuentes, Maqueira-Marín & Bruque-Cámara, 2018). Process development is intended to diminish unit expenses of conveyance and generation, convey new or create new fundamentally enhanced items and increment quality (Atalay, Anafarta & Sarvan, 2013). Bashir and Verma (2017), concurred that process development is an essentially enhanced conveyance strategy or selection of another generation procedure. In telecommunication industry, Igami (2017) indicated that process development offers the roads for securing and enhancing the quality and sparing expenses through expansion of GSM networks.
Research Problem
Moyano-Fuentes et al., (2018) note that companies in Western Europe have continuously fought wars on the process innovation front leading to profit-making as well as heavy losses in case of those firms that cannot sustain innovative processes on specific markets. In Africa, studies have shown there is a heavy reliance on foreign companies in surviving market competition but this can only be sustained if the process innovations are well designed to accommodate new market changes (Song, 2019). The competitiveness of such firms relies on their ability to enhance processes that will be appealing to the market even though this could involve lots of costs that must be borne by the telecommunication companies. Without managing the costs, a firm will fail to be competitive especially in the busy telecommunications market.
Kenyan telecommunications industry has been very competitive (Madsen & Leiblein, 2015) due to its previous low penetrration rates in mobile and fixed markets (CAK, 2015). The first players were Safaricom and Kencell, but the entrance of other network operators brought competition in the industry. Telkom Kenya and Yu Mobile acquired mobile licenses in 2008 but in 2014, Yu Mobile was bought off by two leading mobile companies. The increasing competitive situation led to price conflicts, which led to lowest prices in Africa (Osano & Koine, 2016).
The increase in competition drives telecommunication companies to employ various innovative and competitive strategies in order to survive in the industry (David, 2019). This boils down to how competitive firms innovative process is going to be to remain ahead of the competition (Ole Kulet et al.,, 2019). Despite the competition, the affluent financial requirements mark the entry onto the telecommunications market difficult yet lucrative to join since a fall from such a market is costly (Njoh, 2018). This leads to the big question that informed this study: does process innovation influence the competitive advantage of telecommunication industry? The context of previous studies were different from the current study hence a gap to be filled through this empirical study; to establish the influence of process innovation on the competitive advantage of telecommunication industry in Kenya.