Effects of business process re-engineering on competitive advantage of St. John ambulance in Nairobi, Kenya
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Date
2014-08-26
Authors
Wanja, Dolly B.
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Abstract
With the escalating health care costs, healthcare service providers are also
continuously seeking ways to stay competitive and provide quality service to the
customers. Healthcare industry has traditionally emphasized on breakthroughs in
operating procedures and technology in the bid to stay competitive. Surprisingly, St
John Ambulance has remained static in service delivery, using old ways of doing
thing as her competitors are re-engineering their processes. This status of affairs has
rendered St. John Ambulance less competitive to the extent that it is copying what
newcomers are doing. In fact St. John Ambulance is losing business in Kenya and
may be rendered redundant when no action is taken to correct the situation. It risks
coming down on its knees, although it was the first organization to start these services
in Kenya. Although many studies on Business Process Re-engineering and
competitive advantage have beep conducted globally, very few studies addressed the
positive cultural change; effective structure change, efficient information technology,
and effective resources as factors determining the improvement of competitive
advantage at St John Ambulance. In fact there is scanty information on business
process re-engineering as strategy to improve competitive advantage at St John
Ambulance, Kenya in the industry. It is against this background that this study
attempted to analyze business process re-engineering as strategy to improve
competitive advantage at St John Ambulance, Kenya. This study specifically sought
to establish how the internal factors of Business Process Re-engineering at St John
Ambulance would improve its competitive advantage. This study used a descriptive
survey and was conducted in Nairobi's on companies offering Ambulance services.
The target population will be the 68 board of directors and Managers, and employees
of these companies. A sample population of 34 respondents (50% of target
population) was obtained using stratified sampling method to obtain the respective
number of respondents in each stratum. The respondents from each stratum were
selected using simple random sampling. Data was collected using a semi structured
questionnaire which was pre-tested for reliability and validity during a pilot test. The
data collected was classified, measured and analyzed using descriptive statistical
techniques. Quantitative data will be analyzed using regression analysis while
Qualitative data will be analyzed using content analysis. IBM Software Package for
Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 20.0 will be used in quantitative data analysis. The
study found out that positive cultural change, effective structure change, efficient
information technology, and effective organizational resources influenced
improvement of competitive advantage moderately. It also found out that Business
process Re-engineering (BPR) ensured improvement in Productivity. The study
recommends that St Johns Ambulance should; improve the process and organizational
alignment towards the customer; ensure case for change in culture; effective
investment in information technology; ensure effective process management geared
towards direct cost reduction or productivity improvement; implementing BPR alone
and just supplementing by other improvement techniques such as TQM, TPM, kaizen
among others.
Description
Department of Business Administration
Keywords
Organisational change --management Thesis, Re-engineering management