The doctor of business and finance was interacting with students and lecturers of Datalink University College, Tema.

[contextly_sidebar id=”0lwlssDjA01S1XzrpM7khNYVwOsWT19e”]Speaking on the them ‘Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur’, he recounted how the founders of Groupe Nduom had to nurture the entrepreneurial dream in International Business Solutions (IBS) to the level where they could dream of adding other businesses to their fold.

He urged the students never to give up on their dreams but be resilient in persevering to achieve all dreams.

In attendance were top managers of Groupe Nduom who made various presentations on the goods and services their companies offer.

Groupe Nduom has over 60 companies, offering employment to many Ghanaians and others in Liberia, Togo, La Cote d’Ivoire (West Africa), the UK and USA.

Groupe Nduom businesses include banking, investment banking, media, electronics, logistics, hospitality, insurance, private equity, pension, sports, academia, estate development among others.

In the USA, his father, Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom owns ISF Bank based in Chicago, Illinois.  Also in Liberia, GN Bank, a member of Groupe Nduom, has eight (8) branches.

In Ghana, there are over 300 GN Bank branches.

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By: citifmonline.com/Ghana

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These nuggets, in my opinion, represent what could change the face of doing business in Africa for Young Entrepreneurs.

1. Focus

Every Entrepreneur will at various stages of their entrepreneurial growth hear that passion translates into a call to find a need to solve or a need to be created and solved. Often, the passion we have remains mere intentions/ideas and may not become successful businesses because the ideas we carry are not the success we seek, the businesses established are what define success.

For many Young Entrepreneurs, determining among this lot, a clear concise vision and focus on that one true idea and its possibilities that best represents who you are may make the difference for you. Having an array of things you do or are good at is cool as some will tell you, what ticks is a clear focus on one thing that works, that you are known for, that has a definite bigger picture in industry terms could do the trick for you. Be Focused!

2. Value

The biggest challenge for many starting up is finding that unique value proposition that clearly outlines the need the market yearns for. Importantly it is continually understanding what Customers want and whether a company’s product or service is commensurate with the needs of the market that isn’t static.

A company’s true moment of success is its ability to continue to offer value to its client over their lifetime through winning new clients or maximizing repeat purchases from existing clients. Create and Rethink Value!

3. Product Development

Will hype and photoshoots grow your Business? Personal branding will only reinforce brand perception based on the product or service your company offers to an existing or new market. Real growth is driven through tangible and intangible products and for most part, your brand perception holds real value when you can speak in real turn-over and contribution to taxes about your Business than simply looking good, speaking well or posing for the camera to be respected as an Entrepreneur.

If your Product isn’t actively marketed beyond the owner’s personality, you don’t exist as an Entrepreneur. Create and Improve Your Product or Service Offering!

4. Team Building

You cannot succeed on your own as a Young Entrepreneur, and in today’s economy you won’t find the right talent anywhere, except you can mold attitudes, train and inspire only to the extent that the employee hired is willing to bear.

Increased motivation may help increase productivity but hire more for Loyalty and Attitude than for the skill potential employees claim they possess. Create or Improve Team Culture!

5. Capacity

Without the relevant understanding of modern tools and demonstration of knowledge in Administration, Performance Management, Team Building, Sales and Customer Service among others you will become obscure and obsolete as an Entrepreneur. Build Your Capacity!

6. Financial Performance

Financial Performance is tied to sales, financial reporting and controls but importantly without key metrics to assess and grow sales, you will not grow as a firm or Entrepreneur.

Research on ways to measure Client Growth, Sales, Tools to check finances, appropriate Budgeting and proper Governance structures to increase your success rate as a Young Entrepreneur. Implement more OKR’s than KPI’s. Real Growth Trumps PR!

7. Growth and Sales

Regardless of the PR you build around your company, without tools to measure Performance you will never succeed if you don’t have the numbers to back it up with a reasonable baseline to demonstrate real growth. Without a proof of concept that shows real growth or potential, you risk overestimating your potential.

Without increased Sales, Your Passion is meaningless. Without measurable Impact, you cannot define your level of Impact.

8. Business Partnerships

Your Business is only as good as the Partnership agreements you draw up or enter into to help you run/manage your Business. Seek Counsel, Invest in the Process, Build Trust above all, do what you said you will do. Your Partner must reflect the future you want!

9. Hiring

Truth is you may never get the best of talent on your first hire. Loyalty, Attitude, should be qualities you look out for in Staff beyond Skill. 2018 is a year of numbers, growth, turn-over, governance, product and brands and certainly not about you my dear Young Entrepreneur.

It’s no longer about You! Build that business and let’s celebrate Your Business because you made it work, not because You are the Business!

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By: John Armah is the CEO of the Orios Group. (0541 888 877 /0303 970 723. Email: johnarmah59@yahoo.)
He is empowering young Ghanaian Entrepreneurs with Training, Investment, Strategies and Policy Advocacy to tackle some of Africa’s brightest problems in Health, Technology, Agriculture Services and Art.

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The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta, made this announcement on the floor of Parliament today, Wednesday, November 15, whilst presenting the government’s budget and policy statement for 2018.

[contextly_sidebar id=”6AYnmXGTzmk8EQu9aRUUnzGhCW0pwikF”]According to the Minister, the government will through the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Plan (NEIP), grant the tax holidays to the beneficiaries based on the number of people they employ.

The companies will also be allowed to carry forward their losses for a period of five years

“As a further commitment to creating a supportive ecosystem for young Ghanaian entrepreneurs of age 35 years and below, who start their own businesses, government will through the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Plan (NEIP), grant tax holidays based on the number of persons employed by a start-up or early-stage business,” he said.

“A preferential tax rate of between 3 to 5 years will be granted after the tax holiday.”

This announcement by the Finance Minister follows calls for the government to provide “deliberate support” to Ghanaian entrepreneurs to enable them grow their businesses.

A Board Member of GHACEM, Ghana’s leading cement manufacturer, Dr. Ishmael Yamson, said in September: “doing business in this country is not easy, and we have to make it easy for businesses to flourish. There is no way we are going to create businesses, create wealth, we are going to create jobs, create widespread prosperity if doing business in this country is not made easy.”

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration has consistently indicated its commitment towards supporting young business owners.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo earlier in July, set up a 100 million dollar package to fund the NEIP.

Akufo-Addo said at the time that, he is confident the project will help address the major unemployment issues in the country.

“Let me introduce you to the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Plan. This is the flagship initiative which will be the primary vehicle for providing an integrated national support for startups and small businesses. Despite the severe constraints of our public finances, which have resulted from years of mismanagement and corruption, Government has contributed US$10 million as seed money for the Plan. It is the intention that this seed money should be leveraged to raise money from private sources and public organizations to the tune of US$100 million to fund its programmes,” the President had said.

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By: Edwin Kwakofi/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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She shared her thoughts and insights on the impact young entrepreneurs can make on the continent through scalable businesses during talk session at Workshed as part of The Bold New Normal Tour.

The multiple award winning business leader, was emphatic on the role and the potential of businesses, and for that matter entrepreneurs in building economies.

As part of her opening statement during the hour-long interaction, she succinctly stated that, “Throughout time, one thing that is certain is that economies have been built by businesses. Somehow, in our part of the world we have come to this expectation that government will build our economies and countries for us, they don’t. Work outputs create prosperity, government alone cannot do that.”

She posited that the responsibility of government was to provide an enabling environment for businesses to thrive. Entrepreneurs, on the other hand are to take advantage of the policies, laws and local conditions to build relevant businesses that will grow the economy and bring prosperity to people.

After challenging the perception on the role of government, Lucy Quist went on to challenge all entrepreneurs to have a better appreciation of their environment, industries and economies if they are to build businesses that make real economic impact.

“If we are going to be the architects of a more prosperous continent, we need to understand what is going on around us. We need to have relevant numbers at our finger tips as we plan our businesses and think of how we are going to make them grow on a much larger scale to fit into the bigger picture.”

She cited the growth of the services sector and decline of the Agric and Industry sectors in Ghana as examples of local situations that entrepreneurs can consider in creating businesses that will fill the gaps in the economy.

“We have gaps that we need to fill and we need our young minds to think about how we can make these other sectors (agriculture and industry) grow to create prosperity for our people”.

The session at Workshed was also an opportunity to discuss how young entrepreneurs can start and grow scalable businesses through a model that outlives them, creates prosperity for more people and breaks boundaries. Lucy Quist also encouraged entrepreneurs within the same industry to collaborate and push for policies that will bring about growth within their space. The discussions were based on The Bold New Normal; an idea Lucy Quist shares in her TedxEuston Talk in 2016.

Speaking on the event, Andrew Bimpong a co-founder of Workshed, hosts of the event, stated that, “Lucy touched on pertinent ideas about the entrepreneurship journey, the entrepreneurship space and doing business in Ghana at large. Through the key insights she shared we have come to understand that for startups to have a voice in a country like Ghana, it is better we come together to form strong collaborations that will advocate for the right posture from government.

Certainly, the Bold New Normal is the way forward for the African Entrepreneur and we at Workshed are proud to be a part of this move.”

Under The Bold New Normal, Lucy Quist advocates for Africans to take bold actions towards African prosperity. She believes that with a change in the visions, language and mindset of its people, Africa can take bold actions to create prosperity for itself.

The Bold New Normal Tour is a series of interactive speaking sessions with Lucy Quist. The talks focus on how young entrepreneurial minds can take bold steps away from the norm and create prosperity for themselves, their country and continent.

The first session was held at Workshed, a co-working space for young entrepreneurs located in Spintex, Accra that dedicates itself to enabling the growth of business.

The events under this tour will be held at key locations where Lucy Quist can meet and interact with young entrepreneurial minds.
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Source

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Mr Josiah Eyison, Founder of iSpace, said the hub trained people, especially young women who wanted to be entrepreneurs, but lack the technology and resources to start up their businesses.

“We provide resources for people who want to start off their businesses to become entrepreneurs. We offer training in business development and technology. We refine business ideas into real businesses by making available a conducive stage for start ups to grow,” he said.

Mr Eyison added that, iSpace is also responsible for funding the launch of the business, buying a website domain for advertisement of products and also register the various businesses for participants since “money is usually the headache for most people to start up their businesses”.

“iSpace is a locally owned hub in Ghana and run by Ghanaians so we understand our community and try to find solutions that would best curb these problems especially when it comes to technology and women”.

“I believe that to end poverty you have to equip women. Technology is not a physical thing but mental and women should be the ones to do it better that’s why we are unlocking women in technology,” he explained.

“So far we have thirty-three people pitching their businesses out of which twenty-eight are women,” he noted.

Sabena Adams, a participant, said she was amazed by the support given them by Ispace, saying, “iSpace has been really helpful through training and coaching and today I get to pitch my business idea and I’m very happy.”

“My business is to promote Moslem women who do not have a balance between their faith and social life. I want the Moslem woman to understand how to blend her dressing and still be that religious woman and a regular woman any day.”

Salma Mohammed, another participant also expressed her gratitude to iSpace for the opportunity to make her long nurtured business dream almost become a reality.

She also urged young people to join in the technology world to achieve their business dreams “If you have a business idea and don’t know how to go about it, iSpace is the best place for you to make that dream a reality so come join us,” she said.

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Source: GNA

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