Value Innovation Strategies and Operational Performance of Selected Restaurants in Nairobi Kenya

Abstract

In today’s fiercely competitive environment, most firms have only one choice to innovate or die. Many innovation and creativity studies have focused on providing solutions or solving problems using technology, thus providing technological solutions to customers’ problems. In return technologies have been viewed as solutions to problems making most innovations to be solutions driven. However unlike technological solutions, value innovation focuses on redefining the problems themselves, thereby making competition irrelevant. The main objective of this study was to determine the effect of value innovation strategies on operational performance of selected restaurants in Nairobi, Kenya. The specific objectives of the study was to determine the extent of application of value innovation strategies in the selected restaurants in Nairobi, Kenya and to establish the impact of application of value innovation strategies on operational performance of selected restaurants in Nairobi, Kenya. The study was carried out on the selected restaurants in Nairobi, in Kenya targeting the staff of these organizations. The study adopted a cross sectional survey design. Primary data was collected via questionnaires using the “drop and pick” method. The questionnaires were self-completed and collected within two weeks of delivery. The data was analyzed using both descriptive & inferential statistical measures. Descriptive statistics included: frequencies, percentages, mean scores and standard deviations. Inferential statistics was done using regression analysis to determine the relationship between the independent and dependent variables under study. The selected restaurants were found to apply value innovation strategies to a large extent. Value innovation strategies as depicted by product and service value innovation were found to have a positive relationship with the operational performance of the selected restaurants. These variables related positively to quality, cost and service time as operational performance indicators for the selected restaurants with service value innovation featuring more significantly