| dc.description.abstract | The small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector has an important role to play in developing
economies, poverty alleviation and job creation, and this can only be realized through growth of
the sector. To determine the operational challenges in the growth of SME's in Kisumu County.
Specifically the study aimed to assess the impact of Supply chain and capacity planning in the
growth of SME's in Kisumu County, to determine how Logistics and inventory control impact
on the growth of SME's in Kisumu County, to ascertain the impact operational structure and
production in the growth of SME's in Kisumu County and to establish the role of information
communication and technology in the growth of SME's in Kisumu County. This research
adopted a descriptive survey design where the population of interest in the County SME were
visited and data collected through questionnaire, interview and conversation analysis. The target
population for this study was 7000 SME's from all the licensed businesses within kisumu County
(Data from single business permit licenses kisumu county council 2012). Stratified Random
Sampling procedure was used for this research as it enabled the population of interest if not
homogeneous to be subdivided into groups or strata so as to obtain a representative sample. It
also gave each SME in the population an equal chance of being selected. The researcher used a
questionnaire as the primary data collection instrument. The organised data was interpreted on
account of concurrence and standard deviation to objectives using assistance of computer
packages especially SPSS and Microsoft Excel to communicate research findings. Tables and
other graphical presentations as appropriate were used to present the data collected for ease of
understanding and analysis. Majority of the respondents argued that all the above factors were
almost equally very important to the growth of the business as they all greatly influenced the
efficiency and effectiveness of the product/production/ service offering of the business. The
management of the SMEs should ensure efficient and effective organizational and operational
factors since they have impact in the growth of the business in provision of services, goods and
market reach to a great extent. Still on the organizational and operational factors, the
management should ensure an efficient location of facilities, efficient management structures and
then an optimum capital base. | en_US |
