Effect of Product Development Strategy on Performance in Sugar Industry in Kenya

The purpose of this research was to examine empirically the effects of new product development strategy on company performance. To do so, two indicators of product development strategy which include development of new product and improvement of existing products were considered as independent variable indicators while performance measures were total output turnover, profitability, sales quantities and capacity utilization. The sugar industry in Kenya was chosen as the empirical context for the present study’s analysis largely because of its crucial role in agriculture subsector. Consistent with the study’s hypothesis, this study’s results show that introduction of other new products other than sugar has largely been minimal while improvement of existing products has adopted through packaging and branding. Resultant performance was positive in total output turnover, sugar sales quantities, capacity utilization was moderate while profitability after tax gave fluctuating results. Performance was fairly responsive to improvement of product processes procedures but poor in introduction of new products since actualization is yet to be realized. Implication aspect of this study’s results depicts the crucial need of actualization of new products to the consumer and to exhaustively factory capacities. Introduction of current technologies though been effected by some companies is promising to be a key in investment both for high, diverse production and cheaper with minimum wastage. Present day’s managers in effect should take care to build reasonable and realistic expectations about potential new products that are compatible with the current sugar production processes.