Characteristics of a Successful Entrepreneur

Been a while. I'm being inspired to post this blog because Kobby and I are in the planing phase of our new baby business idea. We hope we'll be able let you all know what happens to our business as we move from planing to implementation.

So this post is about finding within yourself whether you are an Entrepreneur. The following is what i came across in my reading.

Guts: Guts means you must have an entrepreneurial instinct, which is an overwhelming desire to have your own business. You must have the guts and dedication to be completely devoted to your goal. Incidentally, devotion to your goal is much more likely if you have a love for your intended business. Life is too short to start a business that doesn't give you satisfaction and joy. And, through good times and bad times, you will stick with something you love.

Brains: While appropriate educational credentials are important, entrepreneurial "brains" means more than scholastic achievements. To become a successful entrepreneur, you must have a working knowledge about the business you plan to start before you start it. Common sense combined with appropriate experience is the necessary brainpower. Prudence, follow through and attention to detail are very important.

Capital: You will need seed money of your own plus sufficient cash to maintain a positive cash flow for at least the first year. In a future session you will learn how to forecast future cash requirements through cash flow control. Many businesses can be started on a very small scale with a small investment. Then, as the business grows and you gain experience, cash flow from your business can be used for growth. In some cases you don't need starting capital to hire other people because you might start by doing everything yourself. The "do it yourself" start is a good way to learn everything about your business and also makes you better qualified to delegate work to others later on. You can control your risk by placing a limit on how much you invest in your business.

These three will get you going. If you are someone you always has an idea to make things better, then try putting one of them on the drawing board.

An advice, read, read all you can and everything you come across.

Introducing Ghana Business Code

The Ghana Business Code is introduced against the background of trade liberalization, globalization and challenges and opportunities associated with it.

Ghana business, by this initiative, appreciates increased international attention on Corporate Responsibilities (CR) and the 'triple bottom line' that emphasizes performance measurement of corporate, social, environmental and economic responsibilities.

The Code represents three Ps in another sense; a unique Process, a unique Product and unique Possibilities.

The Code is the product concerted effort by multiple stakeholders ranging from large businesses, state enterprises, small and medium-sized businesses, business schools, trade and business associations, unions, financial institutions, consumer and other relevant organizations in both the public and private sectors.

What is the Ghana Business Code?

The Ghana Business Code is a series of prescriptions based on the universal principles referred to in the UN Global Compact 10 Principles, relating to human rights, labour standards, the environment, and anti-corruption.

Compliance with code of conduct is increasingly becoming a requirement in supply chain management, business match-making, business mentoring schemes, financing, national and international procurement.

The Code is intended to present best practices by adding requirement beyond core labour rights. Although, not all human rights are covered, there will be a continues process of updating and refining the Code, which will include annual revisions. The Code does not substitute sound legislation protecting the interests of employees, customers, or shareholders.

Who is it for?

The Ghana Business Code is the first code ever formulated to apply to all segments of the national business community. Continuous strong collaboration between the stakeholders is crucial for the code to become a vehicle for improved business practice to the benefit of the people of Ghana; the stakeholders are committed to establishing awards and other enforcement mechanisms.

Will the Code add value?

The Code may serve to give guidance internally in a company and it may also serve to describe to the outside world how a business as an entity behaves.

The Ghana Business Code may add value to your business in terms of:

1. Branding opportunity to attract foreign business operations and investment into Ghana;
2. Potential of replacing costly individual supply chain management system;
3. Increasing your ability to attract and retain the highest qualified employees;
4. Increasing employee motivation and loyalty and thereby productivity;
5. Creating brand value of 'best business practice' towards consumers

It is exopected that all business comply with the laws of Ghana; where laws or specific industry codes provide for additional protection to the one prescribed by the Ghana Business Code, such as protection shall also be ensured.

Download The Code

What are your views........

source: Ghana Business Code

My First Experience

This is my first post in a while and it was actually inspired by an essay I wrote for an application. It reminded me of my first hands-on experience in ‘doing business’ the startup way.

This occurred during September 2006, two months after graduating form the university and was an exciting and sobering experience of how together with a couple of friends we decided to actual try out one of our ideas to see what it feels like to be an entrepreneur.

Since we were fresh out of school and habits die hard, it involved organizing a movie show for freshmen during their first four weekends on KNUST campus. The planning for this venture started in a small restaurant on campus as all the guys involved (including my co-author Justin) resided on or around the campus. The ‘meetings’ resulted in three objectives; obtain funds, organize logistics and market the shows.

To raise funds we decided to self-fund a portion of the budget and to collects loans from close friends with a promise of paying one-and-a-half times the amount collected, a decision stemmed from our ‘sciences’ background since none of us had a business majored in business. Funds secured we split into a three teams of two people each.

We defined logistics as seating, electronic equipment, printing and distribution of tickets. Although we capped attendance at 300 (we just chose the number), we booked 350 chairs, the extra 50 being a contingency. We ordered 350 tickets and obtained the electronic equipment by hiring some and borrowing from friends where available. We even had our own custom made speakers from another ‘entrepreneur’ who makes sound devices as a hobby.

Marketing of the show involved use of mono-chrome posters on all public notice boards and more extensively door to door or direct sales methods.

The venue, the most important of all the requirements proved the most difficult, as ‘entertainment’ is usually deemed as a distraction by university authorities and we were refused use of numerous ideal locations. We finally managed to secure the ‘multi-purpose’ Dining Halls of one of the Halls of Residence, with its attendant problems. We were granted access on condition the Hall Students Council were given a part of the profit, an agreement reached only in consensus with the Entertainment Head of the Council, another decision lacking of business sense.

We quickly gathered momentum since our perceived greatest obstacle had been overcome. The first day of the show arrived and we quickly setup seating and the electronic equipment, where quickly means 3 hours or thereabout. With morale at the highest, we decided to sell tickets door to door and use it as last minute publicity. We found a scheme where we went to the rooms of friends of freshmen who had already bought tickets and used their friends purchase as a sales pitch, which worked well. We didn’t have any generating equipment which meant in the event of a power failure, we would be left trying to power 1100Watt projector on sheer willpower. The time advertised arrived and only a handful of people were at the venue, panic slowly started to creep in and tempers rose, each identifying a possible source for the lack of attendance. Luckily it was only the lateness syndrome of students. We quickly started the show and though the attendance did not meet expectation the show went without any major hitches and so ended day one. On the second day things went on a similar note, but we had realized the pre-movie show of popular TV series increased the likely of people coming in and then staying for the show, so we started these 2 hours before the show and it increased the numbers on the second day.

We however encountered a problem where the rest of the council and the Hall Master decided it was against SRC regulations to allow a monopoly for concurrent use of the venue every Saturday and Sunday for 4 weeks and abrogated the agreement. We would only be allowed to do so every 4 weeks. We decided to take the lessons learned from the venture as such and quit the venture since our National Service postings would be in at the next available time for the venue.

The venture helped us experience hands on the problems associated with entrepreneurial pursuits especially where no formal or practical management skills exist among all the proponents of the venture.

In this case we were managed to break even but we realized it was due in part to luck. We paid back what we owed without the rate of return promised but what is a few cedis between friends!

Next Post: Last Minute Syndrome

BoG Website - As good as it gets!

This is just a 'flash' post to commend the Bank of Ghana (BoG) on their website. I had to find some information on policy and regulation issues from the BoG's website.

I'm impressed. It's professional, all links and features displayed work, a good array of information exists and overall on a scale of 1 - 10, I give them a 9.5. Maybe others may have an issue with my rating but understand that after visiting non-existent, badly designed and poor functionality websites of some major Government and Public Sector organisations, the Central Bank wowed me.

Check it Out!

www.bog.gov.gh

Compare with

www.moc.gov.gh

Ps. Don't just check out the home pages, try other links and see.

The Book of Efficiency, Chapter One - Part Two

Part Two of this post discusses the issues that deal with implementing such a system in Ghana.

These issues I believe are best covered under definite topics (Policy and Implementation, Infrastructure and Human Resource, Uses) but you do need to forgive me if some of my topic areas and discussions overlap. Also I’m fighting a bout of Malaria (Round Two and no winner yet), so I was unable to get info on schemes implemented by our Government but I will update this post as and when I do.

POLICY & IMPLEMENTATION

Policy:
I believe in all honesty that the greatest driver of GPC Visa’s success is the policy of the UK Government by pushing
General e-targets, that is, make as many processes as possible and feasible electronic
E-procurement, buy using electronic payment and purchasing systems
Efficiency, enact Prompt payment legislation.
The UK government therefore pushed out a broad agenda; Make these core areas in the operation of the Public Sector more efficient and thus better serve the people by making savings and eliminating waste.

Please name an economic policy that was promised and has been delivered. I can’t because the Government always uses vague expressions such as ‘Macro-Economic stability’ to talk to us instead of “the cedi will longer jump up or down so much but by little bits”. Yes! I remember The Public Sector Reform Ministry proposed an electronic punch card system and I also remember something about the Finance Ministry proposing some electronic accounting scheme for all departments. What have they done? I will update, websites anyone? Good Luck to ME!

Listen to your Boss:
The Treasury as the department mandated to oversee the economy, took up the issue and decided to find a way to implement these policies and help the other departments achieve their targets.

OK, His Excellency’s the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (I hope I got it right, they keep changing the names), you must lead the charge for better financial and economic efficiency among the other departments.

Test the Waters:
The Office of Government Commerce(which I assume is under the Treasury), started a pilot purchasing scheme around 1997, with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and a few other departments. Based on the success and lessons learned, they launched on a wider scale and targeted the whole Public Sector. In both occasions Visa Europe won the strict EU compliant tendering process to execute the contract. Most of the information I present comes from this second contract starting somewhere around 2003 and implemented by Government Departments and Agencies (GDAs) OGCbuying.solutions (OGCb.s), Visa Europe and a consortium of Seven (7) Visa issuing Banks.

Sell the Facts:
OGCbuying.solutions and the National Audit Office (NAO) pushed out the facts about the success of implementing the GPC Visa scheme. Each year an Annual report about the Scheme and the total figures in terms of monetary savings and efficiency and other Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) are released on both OGCb.s and the Official UK GPC Visa website. These also help GDAs to compute their savings internally through standard values and figures. For example, a standard of £28 is approved by NAO as the savings per transaction.

Who is selling the facts about our policies to the people who need to use them? Have you been to a government site and read outdated information? I have, yet I’m sure the contract for the development and hosting of the site is honoured each month! As for answering an enquiry through the website, I won’t begrudge them, try most Ghanaian websites and the same results occur.

www.purchasingcard.info

Please Don’t reinvent the Wheel!
This is one of the most important aspects of the information drive which insures the success of GPC Visa year in and year out. Don’t make the mistakes others made, use the simple approach and borrow from Best Practice. Several documents exist for new GDAs to use as a standard Guide to implementing the Scheme. Example; Her Majesty’s Government Procurement Card Best Practice Guide 2005(everything must be at the behest of Her Majesty, don’t you just love that!). All the issuing banks also have their own Guides for following. If you miss the path, it just means you really want to miss it.

YES! It has already been done. Another government has spent money and time, so let’s ask them to provide us with this information. We ask for money so why not research data? I have seen a number of tenders for consultants for Information Parks and E-Governance Projects. I hope they don’t duplicate information that already exists free of charge. I concede that some aspects must be relevant to only Ghana, but a larger part might just be general to all such projects. I got more free info than I can digest; imagine if President Kuffuor asks Gordon Brown!

CHANGE: Acceptance not Resistance:
GDA’s and other public sector organization must hate change as much as we all do, but some change is inevitable. The Public Sector has therefore learned to accept the scheme and embrace it. They have with open minds found problems and solved them in ways they won’t have imagined if they were bent on resting. This change in all cases came from the top. In some cases it poured down and sometimes trickled down, but it still came down!

Change is the single hardest idea for most people to accept on a large scale. In Ghana it is the same, but change we must. I want each and every one of us to imagine ourselves paying for goods and services with a card. No way! Yet it exists in several places, restaurants, supermarkets yet we have all chosen to ignore it because we feel it is just not us or worse we assume it just won’t work! If you have a VISA® ATM card you can purchase goods and services with it in Ghana TODAY. Do I do as I say? I use Ghana Commercial Bank; we don’t have VISA®, pretty good excuse huh! We all have one! CHANGE!

Data and Information:
Data: information, often in the form of facts or figures obtained from experiments or surveys, used as a basis for making calculations or drawing conclusions

Information: the meaningful material derived from computer data by organizing it and interpreting it in a specific way

I simply want to show that information and data depend on each other. You acquire data, make it meaningful and you have information, the most powerful tool available in the world today.

The single scarcest resource in Ghana is information (which means data is also scarce). A system that would allow a visibility of data on the performance and use of resource by Government and Municipal Agencies would certainly improve efficiency and governance. Going electronic would allow an easy capture and storage of date for interpretation by experts into information. Most critics of going electronic cite security as their reason for being against it. Does security stop people from buying $100,000 dollar cars and houses? No, instead they get a security company to protect their assets. Connect the dots!

Sorry Guys! It seems this is turning into a Mini-Series. Too many Mexican Soap operas I guess. HMM! Actually I think it’s more Ghanaian, any movie with only one part around.

I will provide all the sources from whence came this knowledge at the end of the series.

The Dilemma of a Blogger

Monologue: a long tedious uninterrupted speech during a conversation.

Guys, I seriously need for this to turn into a dialogue or to even know if someone out there (UFO’s welcome) reads this blog. Please POST a comment to let us know at least people read this. We need motivation. Thanks

The Book of Efficiency, Chapter One - Part One

Efficiency is the degree to which something is done well or without wasted energy, that is the productive use of resources.

Ghana as a nation as we are told by the Government lacks adequate resources for delivering all the services citizens expect and demand. I believe it is not just a ‘lack’ of resources but the inefficient application of the little we have which is the main problem. As the Government of Ghana tries to formulate and implement policies on e-Governance, using a Public Private Participation (PPP) approach in hope of improving efficiency in governance, let us together discuss successes and failures in improving efficient governance from other countries.

The Government of UK is promoting efficiency in Government Departments and Agencies (GDA) by requiring GDA to achieve certain targets in efficiency-targets and prompt payment legislation and also through the National e-Procurement Strategy.

This post is about a program introduced by the Treasury, in partnership with Visa Europe and a consortium of seven visa-issuing banks, which introduced a card purchasing programme called the Government Purchasing Card (GPC).

The GPC Visa programme was formally launched by the Treasury in October 1997 as a tool to purchase and pay for low value goods and services efficiently and cost effectively. GPC provides substantial benefits for users by providing a streamlined process for low value, ad hoc purchases. Improved management information allows users to monitor and evaluate purchasing activity and to collaborate with others to secure improved terms with suppliers.

GPC Visa 2005 in figures
No. of GPC Visa schemes in operation: 526
No. of GPC Visa cards in use: 70,078
Total spend on GPC Visa cards: £527,287,340
No. of transactions on GPC Visa: 2,882,974
Average spend per transaction on GPC Visa: £182.90
Monetary savings: £80,723,272 (Average of £28 per transaction)
Paper savings: 28,829,740 sheets of A4 paper

Top 5 Merchant categories of GPC Visa Spend in 2005
Travel 24.22%
Office Stationery, Equipment and Supplies 19.46%
Hotels and Accommodation 10.12%
General Retail and Wholesale 9.09%
Miscellaneous Industrial/Commercial Supplies 6.35%


It has been identified that in order for a GDA to implement the scheme successfully, three sections are involved;

People
 Senior Management should be the driving force behind the programme, pushing strong implementation practices
 Relevant departments such as Finance and Procurement should be involved as early as possible.

Process
 A simple straight-forward process for purchasing, which must be relevant and convenient for cardholders.
 Cardholders must be trained in use of GPC prior to implementation and cards issued to end-users(the people who make the actual purchase)
 Relevant financial thresholds set to capture a large percentage of low value purchases with appropriate controls, but minimizing restrictions.

Co-ordination
 Centralized policy / guidelines and a central competence centre used to disseminate Best Practice information and discuss common issues/opportunities and also share knowledge with other GDA
 Supplier strategy to devise recruitment strategies, assess the data and communication capabilities of suppliers.
 GPC should be used as a catalyst for change to re-think accounting and purchasing procedures to leverage the opportunities it presents.

The benefits of GPC Visa are numerous;
1. Prompt payment The City of Edinburgh Council managed to use a tailored web-based solution involving GPC Visa and additional software to reduce payment periods to contractors from above 30 days (which is the legal limit set by contractors before charging interest in Edinburgh) to 36 hours or 48 hours depending on the contractor’s bank.
2. Administration/Paperwork reduction; The City of Edinburgh Council expected to cover works amounting to about£13million in 2005 which meant about 14,000 invoices to be processed with a cost of about £65 per transaction. Using the solution mentioned above they processed only 12 invoices, 1 each month from their bank.
3. Better Management Information; GPC Visa provides management information (minimum being card number, transaction date, merchant details, currency of transaction and amount.) delivered in a variety of ways including the internet and tailored to the specific requirements of each programme. In the case of the Metropolitan Police (UK’s police service, aka The Met), which has processes about 6,000 flights per year, a significant portion being outside UK, this information is useful to The Met in knowing how and where there is scope to negotiate discount fares and find further ways to economise, a notable advantage with travel booking on such a large scale.
4. Empowers workforce; GPC Visa replaces bureaucracy and is a simple to use payment system which can have appropriate levels of control added, and therefore empowers end users utilising appropriate levels of control. Accountability is key with centralised electronic reports producing a clear audit trail identifying exactly who has made each purchase. Since each programme is fully customized the end users get to choose processes they want and are comfortable with and not someone else’s ideas.
5. Small and Medium Enterprise friendly; Significantly, GPC Visa allows public sector bodies to trade effectively with small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which are essential to the economic vitality of a locality or region. Increasing use of e-procurement solutions by the public sector is sometimes seen as a threat to SME suppliers. However, making Visa payments through an e-procurement system is no different from paying for goods online using a supplier website. Suppliers taking Visa payments are therefore more able to engage with an organisation’s e-procurement solution. Again this is mutually beneficial because the buyer receives greater control and spend compliance, whilst the supplier can retain their trade with the Government organisation by trading electronically.

PART TWO will delve into issues of the implementation of such a system in Ghana.