Business Process Digitalization and Sales Performance of Pharmaceutical Companies in Kenya

Abstract

Organizations continue to experience heightened competition which has forced them to adopt technology in their business transactions, especially Information Technology with an aim of growing their sales. Supplier digitization has drastically changed the ways in which organizations interact and transact business with their various suppliers. Hence business process digitalization has become an important strategy for organizations that are focused on being the market leaders and at the same time effectiveness and efficiency is their driving force to achieve high-quality service delivery to customers and increase its annual sales. This study focused on determining the association between business process digitalization and sales performance. The research objective was to determine the relationship between business process digitalization and sales performance of pharmaceutical companies in Kenya. The independent variables were supply chain automation, workflow systemization and information integration, while the dependent variable was sales performance. The research methodology employed was descriptive survey design and primary data was collected from 48 respondents. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. The findings reveal that business process digitalization and sales performance were positively related, where supply chain automation (t=0.684, p=0.040); workflow systemization (t=3.383, p=0.002) and information integration (t=1.822, p=0.035) all showed to be positively related to sales performance and statistically significant at 95% confidence level as all p values are <0.05. The study concluded that the variables in business process digitalization have a cumulative positive and significant impact on the sales performance of the pharmaceutical companies. The study recommended that pharmaceutical companies continue to explore the various options in digitalization and be willing to make investments as this was established to positively influence their sales performance.