Factors affecting the adoption of Business process outsourcing in Kenya's mobile phone companies

Abstract

This research is concern with investigating the factors that affect adoption of Business Process Outsourcing in mobile phone companies in Kenya. The study was motivated by the low level of Business Process Outsourcing adoption in these companies amidst high operations cost and shrinking profitability as reported by Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK). The study had three objectives: to determine the extent of Business Process Outsourcing adoption, to establish the enablers of Business Process Outsourcing adoption and to establish the barriers of Business Process Outsourcing adoption by mobile phone companies in Kenya. Twenty eight questionnaires were administered to employees of the four Mobile phone companies in Kenya. In addition there were four interviews. The respondents were selected using stratified and judgmental sampling. The respondents were departmental heads from each of the four companies and interview was administered to individuals with vast experience about the organization and was involved in the company’s decision making. Data collected from the questionnaires was analyzed using descriptive statistics and presented using frequency tables. Where data collected from the interviews was analyzed using content analysis. The findings from the study indicate that adoption of Business Process Outsourcing has been adopted by these companies to a very small extent as most of the services produced a mean of more than 2.5. The key enablers to adoption of Business Process Outsourcing were: quality, security & trust to information and profitability. Whereas the main factors that pose as challenges included: cost of Business Process Outsourcing, sales and marketing barriers In view of the findings, several recommendations were made which may be useful for key decision makers in the mobile phone sector. Mobile phone companies should see adoption of Business Process Outsourcing as a long term investment rather than as a short term investment. In addition there is need for key decision makers to realize that most of the vendors provide security and confidentiality to client information.