The Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI) has organised a capacity-building workshop in Accra for members on ‘Entrepreneurial Finance’, ‘Opportunity Recognition’ and ‘Stress Management’.
The workshop also gave each member an opportunity to develop a business idea into a product or service that would be competitive in the market.
Nana Appiagyei Dankawoso I, the President of the GNCCI, addressing the members, said entrepreneurs were sometimes enthused with the idea of employing persons with big qualifications, which was not an assurance of effective output.
He said there were many successful businessmen and women who had not acquired intensive education, adding that, “It doesn’t matter your educational level, but your common sense level.”
To succeed in business, he reiterated that one needed three models, thus, the cognitive (academics), affective (what willingly, one could do) and psychomotor (what one could use his or her hand to do).
Failing in a business, he said, was a basis for one to be strengthened to take better decisions with regard to the business progress.
“Let acquiring good names be more important to you than riches because dignity is the most valuable and money would follow later,” he added.
Nana Dankawoso suggested that entrepreneurs who found it challenging to build a brand could enter into partnership with other entrepreneurs to work together.
Speaking on ‘Research and Development’, Nana Dankawoso I advised them to make research part of their business lives to enable them to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and risks in their area of focus.
Every successful entrepreneur has a coach, mentor and trainer who gives him or her direction and support, he said, and urged them to consider such opportunities.
Dr Isaac Oduro Amoako, the Leader of Small Business and Entrepreneurship Research Group, Liverpool John Moores University, speaking on “Entrepreneurship Opportunity Recognition and Idea Generation,” said to evaluate an opportunity as a start-up entrepreneur, one needed to consider models like market and industry attractiveness, internal strategy, networks, team and sustainable advantage before dealing in a product or service.
Another model for consideration, he said, was ‘desirability’ where entrepreneurs had to conduct researches to ascertain if their target customers were willing to exchange their hard earned money for their product.