Effects of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on Kenya’s Food and Beverage Manufacturing Sector

In East Africa, Kenya is the most industrially developed country. With the manufacturing sector being an important industry to the Kenyan economy, there is need for fourth industrial revolution technologies such as Internet of things, augmented reality, simulation, additive manufacturing, system integration, cloud computing, autonomous systems, cybersecurity, and big data analytics whose aim is to merge with humans’ physical lives to be fully adopted throughout the supply chain and this is seen through the firm’s performance indicators. The aim of the study was to determine the effects of the fourth industrial revolution on firm’s performance within the food and beverage sector. A review of the literature found that effects of the fourth industrial revolution do not directly impact profitability but increases the productivity of the firm and this results in the manufacturing process being efficient. An exploratory mixed methods study was conducted and data from 95 firms was used for the analysis. Using ordered probit modelling, it was concluded that most of the firms showed a statistically significant effect of adoption of the simulation (i.e., the mirroring of physical world to virtual mode), and additive manufacturing (i.e., 3D printing) to the firm performance variables which are operating income, market share, profitability, return on assets, return on equity and sales growth. The findings offer future research directions by emphasising the need to include other sectors and firms within the manufacturing industry to better understand the impact of fourth industrial revolution.