Accra, April 27, GNA – Sustaining Competitive and Responsible Enterprises (SCORE) project, spearheaded by the International Labour Organization (ILO), has commenced the training of Small, Medium Enterprises (SME) to gain recognition and acceptance in African markets.
SCORE is a practical training and in-factory coaching programme that improves quality, productivity and competitiveness of small and medium enterprises.
Mr Samuel Onoma Asiedu, National Project Coordinator, SCORE Ghana, who said the focus was to make Ghanaian enterprises gain recognition and remain relevant in the African Continent Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), said they were also interested in making the enterprises compete positively until they attained a space on the international market.
“We need not help enterprises to compete outside. To compete the global world is not that easy, therefore they need to get their processes right, methods right and their employees should understand how to leverage on opportunities and others,” he said.
He said this on Tuesday at the commencement of a two-day workshop in Accra by the ILO with support from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation and the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs.
The workshop provided a platform for stakeholders to share knowledge and deliberate on best practices in doing business, what had been done successfully and unsuccessfully since the introduction of SCORE to Ghana and how to improve their operations to become relevant to the changing needs of enterprises.
Participants for the workshop included the Management Development and Productivity Institute, Score Training Solutions Ghana (STSG), Sekondi Takoradi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Koko Hospitality Consult, and Federation of Professional Trade Associations in Ghana.
Mr Asiedu said the workshop was going to encourage the incorporation of digitization in the operations of businesses to enable them to yield better results.
Mr John Willison,Executive Director of STSG, said he was optimistic that the workshop would help to generate some efficient improvement among the categories of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).
“When this happens, there is a lot of cooperation and they all earn for development which would yield into productivity enhancement,” he said.
He said SCORE also aimed at minimizing cost of production and all expenses in the operations of enterprises to enable them to survive at the bottom line.
Mr Wilson urged management bodies within enterprises to be more committed into the project and engage their employees as they determined the outcome and achievement of their operations.
“When it comes to project implementation, management is expected to encourage workers make them more conscious especially in safety, waste management, and provide necessary resources to enable the working system to attain the desired result,” he advised.
On the part of Mr Emmanuel Asamani, Director of Operations, STSG, the SCORE was on a clear path, hence called for more commitment from all partners to adopt more effective guidelines to obtain positive outcome.
“Every enterprise should understand that we are not an enterprise of managers as against workers, rather, an enterprise of managers and workers performing together as a team to provide and identify the key interest of consumers,” he advised.
He explained that that would equip them to be consistent in the global market as they were operating in a global village.
Mr Asamani admonished managers and workers to understand their individual roles in the enterprise to be able to stand firm in the global market and remain relevant.
GNA