Supply Chain Risk Mitigation in Pharmaceutical Industry in Kenya

Abstract

Supply chain risk mitigation is important in any organisation to eliminate the possibility of the risk occurring, shift a risk or outcome to a third party, reducing the impact of a risk, reducing the probability of an event occurring and to establish contingency plans that reduce the impact after an event occurs. Although a number of studies have been done on the concept and context of supply chain, none has been done within the context of Supply chain risk mitigation in pharmaceutical industry. The purpose of the study was to determine supply chain risk mitigation adopted by pharmaceutical firms in Kenya. The objectives of the study were to determine the supply chain risk mitigation by the pharmaceutical firms in Kenya, identify challenges faced in adoption of this Supply chain risk mitigations and to determine how pharmaceutical companies in Kenya overcome challenges in implementing supply chain risk mitigation. The study used descriptive design with the target population of study being all the pharmaceutical firms in Kenya. From the findings, one can conclude the following based on the objectives of the study; supply chain management processes in most pharmaceutical firms in Kenya are bad because of lack of supply chain risk management leadership teams in place and lack of computerized risk management system. However the safety management processes in most pharmaceutical companies in Kenya is good according to the findings of the study. The researcher recommended that pharmaceutical firms need to; have in place a supply chain risk management leadership team and computerize their risk management systems. Future research should be done to; determine impact of supply chain risks on the financial performance of pharmaceutical organizations in Kenya, impact of supply chain risks on product quality among pharmaceutical organizations in Kenya and Supply chain risk mitigation on other fast moving consumer industry in Kenya