Features
Accreditation and business growth
In everything we do in this world, we have our advantages and our disadvantages which make it difficult for people to choose options since they know that every option may have its advantages and disadvantages.
Even the choice of gender sometimes results in controversy since being a man or woman may have its own advantages and disadvantages. I have had some occasions to ask my students whether being a man or woman has its own advantages and whether given the opportunity, they would prefer to come into the world as men or women. This simple issue often resulted in heated debate between the male and female students to such an extent that they sometimes ended up shouting at each other to drum home their points to prove that being a man is preferrable to being a woman or vice-versa.
Male and female options
In such a situation, you find all the male students jumping in support of the male option, while all the ladies also make choices relating to coming into the world as female. Some advantages put up by some of the male for their choices are that first, they will never be found to be pregnant after having an affair with the opposite sex. Secondly, the male has the advantage of general dominance over female in this world. In the case of the female, some of them argue that they prefer to be women because women are always attractive and beautiful and that men will do all they can to pursue them and win their hearts to give them some favours. They argue also that most of the time, it is the men who struggle to cater for the women for which reason it is better to come into the world as a woman.
No matter how one looks at the issue, it is important to note that everything in this world has its advantages and disadvantages. For example, if a business organisation decides to go for accreditation, this will help the business entity concerned to expand business in both the local and international market and thereby make more money for itself and the workers who work there. The disadvantage, however, is that having made more money, they are likely to be put into a higher category for taxation purposes.
Importance of business accreditation
What this implies is that accreditation for business entities is important and must, therefore, be encouraged so that our business entities can perform creditably well and be able to offer fit-for-purpose goods and services to the satisfaction of customers. If this becomes the case, it is the customer who will ultimately come out as the final judge to influence purchases in the market and help the business company to grow from strength to strength.
Individuals and groups engage in business to be able to offer satisfactory services to consumers to make them happy with what they buy. For this reason, what is provided, be it goods and services, ought to be oriented towards satisfying the needs of the consumer, so as to help business growth even in situations where there are serious challenges.
Global village
Furthermore, the world has become a global village making it possible for products to be exported to other parts of the world as if such products are all produced from the same place or area in the world. Challenges in the world today, include stiff business competitions from various business actors of which each desires the best in terms of quality.
If each of these business entities and actors deserves what is best for themselves, then what this means is that business competition will continue to get stiffer and stiffer until those who are able to satisfy the consumer in the most desirable or best way, are able to distinguish themselves in the expected manner, resulting in a situation where they come on top of every business activity and for that reason capture the largest portion of the market for themselves.
Small business entities may begin their operations in a small and simple way but consistently expand and seek to improve their operations, capturing a chunk of the market for themselves. This is how business entities that began on a small scale were able to expand their activities to capture the local markets after which they also become successful and move into foreign markets. Any business entity that wants to expand beyond local and international borders, needs to sit up properly in an appropriate manner to meet the challenges ahead.
Confidence of consumers
One reliable way of overcoming business obstacles is to make it a point to ensure that the confidence of customers in your products keeps rising and rising beyond imaginable limits. When this happens, business expands and brings in the needed profits as required by any competent and efficient business entity.
This is why companies operating in small corners of the world are able to come out with quality products that are able to capture the taste and satisfaction of people in their locality as well as other people in the world today. Successful companies that are able to do this can expand their markets and make more money not only for themselves but also for their respective countries.
Confidence building
Accreditation ensures business growth in many ways. In the first place, as has been pointed out already, it helps to build confidence and trust on the part of both suppliers and consumers. Accredited companies are directed and guided to provide goods and services based on certain criterion that guarantees the output of quality products. This builds confidence on the part of customers who realise the need to deal with companies with accredited certifications, thereby leading to business expansion.
The second reason accreditation is good and helps to promote business growth is that accreditation makes the suppliers realise the need to cut down certain costs that otherwise would have been included in the process of production. With the cutting down of costs, companies with accredited certifications are able to increase their profit margins, thereby facilitating easy growth and expansion in business.
Technical competence
A third reason accreditation is good is that it helps to demonstrate technical competence and expertise of the accredited conformity assessment body concerned. This means that, accredited conformity bodies have clear-cut technical knowledge as well as the desired expertise regarding what they engage in and, therefore, focus on what they ought to do to ensure quality tests/inspections, goods and services. The end result of all this is that the company with accredited certification will have a marketing advantage over those companies with no accredited certifications. It is this marketing advantage that will push the company into higher heights in any parts of the world.
Finally, accreditation ensures that the company is able to obtain more work from customers since they can prove that they are technically competent, and has the expertise and legitimacy to produce what is required. When a company gains accredited certification, it becomes ready for serious business in any part of the world. In other words, accreditation is not only good for business but also satisfies the requirements for tenders as well as demonstrates the criteria needed to join a list of suppliers which have been approved to be engaged in any envisaged serious business.
All these go to show the value of accreditation in the world of business today. In the light of all these, all companies, be they local or foreign, must endeavour to ensure that they obtain certification, testing or inspection services from only accredited conformity assessment bodies as a way of proving to the world that they have come of age and can deliver based on their technical competence and expertise.
By Dr Kofi Amponsah-Bediako
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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