Founder and Chief Executive Officer of McDan Group of Companies has said that businesses in Ghana must be ready for major economic shocks because of COVID-19.
According to Mr Daniel McKorley the reason why Ghana has not seen these shocks early is because the country is among the big spenders in the West African sub-region and this has protected many business for the interim. Regardless of this he says, business must gear up.
“Corporate Ghana must be ready. We have not started yet in here. Simply because our governments in West Africa are the biggest spenders, so such things take time when it’s going to hit us but we need to get ready for the bigger shocks.”
He revealed that, even though he had been re-strategising before the outbreak of COVID-19, he has suffered huge losses mostly because of his line of business.
“I started my restructuring before COVID but for now I’m been hit badly. I’m losing over 2 to 3 million dollars every year, which is just unfortunate because of the areas I find myself in; the logistics in the airline industry.”
As a result of the impact of this outbreak on businesses, he emphasizes the need for industry to be focused to be able to sail through this storm.
“Most definitely we have to be serious. For me it’s a new awakening. You don’t have to be so comfortable with your laurels or success. You have to get ready for emergencies like these. As a business man you started your business based on the urge and the risk so it’s okay. This separates the men from the boys.”
The business magnet pointed out that banks in this country are collapsing businesses instead of supporting them.
“To be honest with you, our banks here are not serious. You go to a bank trying to start a small business, they will ask you for your arm. Then whilst you are processing the documents they will ask you of the other arm. Then next time, they will be asking you for your leg. Before you will see your whole body is in the bank. They are collapsing a lot of businesses in here.”
To Mr McKorley, popularly known as McDan, even though, banks have a “desk” to grow businesses those desks are “exploitation desks.”
He added that “they are exploiting small and medium scale businesses. They have to be a bit sympathetic and be able to take what I call… their corporate social responsibility to this country because they are making a lot of profit.”
The creator of the McDan Entrepreneurship Challenge Prize lamented about the attitude of the current youthful population to work.
“There are too many opportunities around. I’m the kind of person who like to see the youth grow because of my background, because of where I’m coming from. Today’s youth is too lazy.”
According to him, most young folk are not focused on the process but are fixed on the destination.
“I believe that most of them look at the end game. They want to be rich as at yesterday. And also we are looking at youth who always put money ahead of them. I ran through over 7000 small business proposals in the first season of the McDan challenge, what I noticed was that over 60 percent of them don’t need money. …you realise that because they have put money ahead of them, their taking stock.”
The McDan Entrepreneurship Challenge Prize seeks to unearth the brightest young entrepreneurs or start-up business managers or students with an extraordinary business model, which can be supported to become the “next largest conglomerate in Africa and beyond.”
The Prize offers its winner a $100,000.
