Challenges Faced by Telephone Companies in Kenya in Outsourcing Services

Abstract

Outsourcing has emerged as a core strategy that businesses use to improve their competitive advantage. However, outsourcing has been faced with challenges that threaten its success. The objective of the study was to determine the challenges faced by telephone companies in Kenya in outsourcing services. Descriptive research method was used for the study. The study targeted the customer care manager, operations manager and technical manager from each of the mobile phone operators in their respective headquarters in Nairobi. That is Safaricom, Airtel, Orange and Yu. Census survey was adopted in this study since the population was small. Questionnaires were used as an instrument for data collection. Data from the field was first edited. Coding was then done to translate the responses into specific categories. Coding was expected to organize and reduce research data into manageable summaries. The coded quantitative items were entered into SPSS for analysis. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, means, standard deviations and percentages were used to describe the data. The analyzed data were presented in form of tables, pie charts and bar-graphs where applicable. The study found that customer care challenges such as shifting client loyalty affected outsourcing by telephone companies to a very large extent as indicated by 67% of the respondents. The study also found that the major operational challenge facing outsourcing is the unfair market practices as indicated by 67% of the respondents. It was finally found that technological hindrances affect outsourcing to small extent as indicated by 50% of the respondents. The study concludes that outsourcing in telephone companies is faced by customer care, operational and technological challenges. It is recommended that outsourcing companies should ensure that they have adequate staff as a strategy for ensuring effective delivery of services outsourced by their clients. The study finally recommended that another study be done to evaluate the effectiveness of the outsourcing services by outsourcing companies which was not the focus of this study.