In 1996, Kwame Mainu from Warwick College in England was helping Kumasi College in Ghana to mount short courses to help upgrade small engineering enterprises. He visited see a classic friend, Mike Sanders, in what he’d learned out of your on-going survey in the engineering industry in Ghana.
‘From the task you’ve transported to date round the survey, is it possible to identify any pressing needs?’ requested Kwame, ‘I’m trying to find recommendations for future short courses.’
‘My primary issue is for far better management,’ mentioned Mike, ‘Some in the enterprises seem to possess showed up in a glass ceiling at roughly 25 to 30 employees. For me, further growth will probably be impeded until more sophisticated management methods might be adopted.’
‘Can you permit us a couple of examples?’
‘Workshop proprietors must learn to delegate a couple of of the functions like production supervision, inspection and qc, accounting and marketing. We are in a position to offer short courses to help prepare senior staff to deal with these areas of the businesses.’
‘It’s not as simple as that, can it be? Proprietors choose to keep everything in their own personal hands. They don’t trust others to think about over management responsibilities.’
‘That’s true, so possibly we have to begin by offering a training course for proprietors in modern management which is benefits for growing the enterprise.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yes, the proprietors all complain they cannot get loans to develop their companies: purchase new equipment and introduce new products. Banks all need to have a proper strategic business plan. The proprietors don’t learn how to draft a proper strategic business plan nor are they going to manage to train on a specialist to make it happen on their own account. It could profit the small establishments whenever we ran short courses operating a business planning.’
Later, Kwame reflected which he’d learned. He was pleased with the progress in the survey and Mike had given him enough new recommendations for short courses to keep the programme running for quite a while. A couple of from the more far sighted entrepreneurs had already requested Kwame for help in upgrading their business management. They recognized that they’re trained as artisans in addition to their skills were mostly technical and practical. They’d no formal learning fundamental business skills like accounting, marketing and hr management.
