Madam Felicia Twumasi, the Chief Executive Officer of Homefoods Processing and Cannery Limited, has said the combination of the right skills and human resource is necessary for scaling up of businesses.
She said the growth in business operation was not easy but with the right set of loyal people around the business, it would thrive.
Madam Twumasi was speaking at the Stanford Seed Transformation Network Business Conference 2019 in Accra on the topic "Scaling in a Difficult Environment."
The main objective of this year's conference is to empower business leaders to scale and thrive in the face of challenges.
Stanford Seed is a Stanford Graduate School of Business initiative that partners with entrepreneurs in emerging markets to build thriving enterprises that transform lives, with the ultimate vision of ending the cycle of global poverty.
The programme was established in 2011, implemented in West Africa in 2013, in the East Africa in 2016, and expanded to India and Southern Africa in 2017.
"It is a difficult business environment, where we do not have the right human resources and the right skills set to operate," she added.
She said it was not always limited capital that affected scaling up of business but the business leader also needed to be focused with the appropriate structures in place.
Madam Twumasi advised young entrepreneurs to run their businesses for sometime before thinking of expansion.
She said business owners needed to be passionate, consistent and focused on all activities necessary to improve and promote the interest of their businesses.
Madam Constance Swaniker, the President of the SEED Transformation Network Ghana, said as the executives continue to grow the network in Ghana into a vibrant business network, "we will need your support and collaboration."
She said Seed Transformation Network, Ghana Chapter was delighted at the opportunity to hold this annual flagship Business and Leadership Conference.
She said this was in furtherance of their objective to create learning environments that enable companies to leapfrog.
"It is also in line with our mission to transition local companies into international players, walking along side member companies through the journey of transformation, and paving the way for others to follow," she added.
She said the conference was to share experiences and learn new ways to address the various challenges that business leaders encountered in the running of the business.
She said the business world was becoming more challenging by the day, hence "we need to and must find appropriate ways to deal with the growing challenges."
Madam Swaniker said a very familiar one was the lack or limited access to capital, because all business require access to funds from time to time to expand their operations, meet short term fund demands or invest in emerging business opportunities.
She said, however, the limited funds that were available through the banks and other financial institutions came at very high rates and with very short term repayment periods.
The President said another issue worthy of mention was the rising cost of doing business, partly due to the relatively high tax rates that businesses have to pay.
She expressed the hope that with the help of the speakers, "we will leave with new mind-sets, approaches and pragmatic business solutions to significantly transform our businesses in spite of any difficulties that we may encounter.
She encouraged the regulators of the business environment to pay attention to the challenges that would be discussed and work with them to resolve them.
"This is because our contribution to the development of the Ghanaian economy is enormous. We can only continue doing so if we receive the desired support from these regulators," she added.