A survey of the use of business process reengineering approach in the Kenyan pharmaceutical manufacturing industry

Abstract

The primary objective of this study was to establish the state of Business process reengineering (BPR) in the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing firms in Kenya. The rationale of the study arose from the fact that little is known about the state of BPR in the Pharmaceutical industry in Kenya. We are having cost of essential drugs being exorbitantly high unlike in the develop world and hence being unaffordable to consumers, hence the interest in BPR. To facilitate this study a survey was carried out across the current 20 Pharmaceutical manufacturing firms in Kenya. The respondents gave information aimed at evaluating the reasons why companies implement BPR, type of processes companies had identified or reengineered and implementation issues behind the BPR concept. The results show that 1. The main drivers ofBPR are competitive advantage and decrease in operating costs. 2. Insufficient knowledge and lack of management support are the main reasons behind the Pharmaceutical fir ms in Kenya not implementing BPR 3. Company culture is the main reason for failure of BPR. These results should however be interpreted-in consideration of the limitations of the study, specifically with regard to the number of firms eyed being small the researcher managed 90% response rate as opposed to the 100% expectation