Innovations by our means

Blog post by Collins Kiptoo (ICT Support Assistant/Webmaster)

Creativity or innovation remains one of the core values at the Agency. It has been incubated through the formulation of a committee and the development of an Innovation Management Module on the Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Innovations help the Agency in achieving its key mandate of facilitating trade by offering cutting-edge solutions that meet both the internal and external stakeholders’ needs. The constituted innovation committee recommends initiatives to promote a culture of creativity and innovation at the Agency, identifying and evaluating opportunities for innovation and monitoring the implementation of these innovations.

KenTrade has continuously integrated creativity and innovation in various business processes and systems, to improve on service delivery. There are several innovative ideas that have been reviewed and implemented at the Agency such as the E-Learning platform.

In the Trade and logistics sector, innovation continues to drive up the facilitation of trade by reducing the time taken for document processing, making of payments, permit approval, and overall cargo dwell time, therefore, driving down the cost of doing business. As the sector increasingly deploys many technologies to facilitate traders, the Agency has embraced innovations that are gamechanger such as the Business Intelligence, Integration Layer, and Data Warehouse (BI, IL&DW) tool which will be used by Partner Government Agencies (PGAs) for reporting and sharing data.

The Business Intelligence Tool has onboarded the Mombasa Port and Northern Corridor Community Charter (MPNCC) PGAs among others such as Anti-Counterfeit Agency and Pharmacy and Poisons Board. Statistics obtained from reports generated from the BI tool indicate that Kenya’s exports in 2021 increased by 17% translating to Ksh.666.70 billion in comparison to 2020’s Ksh.567.4 billion. The BI is an effective innovative tool that will also facilitate synthesizing of large amounts of data and generating reports.

The E-learning portal is also another innovation that the Agency undertook to facilitate efficient training of stakeholders across different locations, share training content, issue training certificates, and encourage self-paced training for stakeholders that prefer that. The innovation was implemented and launched in March 2022. The portal has ensured training and knowledge transfer are seamless and has been instrumental in enhancing service delivery.

These and other innovations implemented have improved brand recognition and value, birthed new partnerships and relationships, and increased overall process and business efficiency. The Innovation Committee, therefore, encourages members of staff to submit their ideas for review and consideration.