Alsale to assemble products locally
What started with GH¢1,900, more than half of the capital being credit from a sister, has now produced a worthy company that currently services about 60 per cent of cash processing needs of financial institutions in the country.
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From a humble beginning as sole proprietorship, with two counting machines it imported in June 2004, Mr Ahmad Adade Boakye’s Alsale Services Ltd has made significant inroads into the Ghanaian market with the support of commercial, rural banks and non-bank financial institutions, as it now has its own range of products under the Alcount brand.
Alsale is currently launching itself to locally assemble most of the items its supplies, having already taken a bite at manufacturing its own fire resistant safes and vault doors under the brand name, Crane. The Cranes are 80 per cent manufactured locally. In addition, the company has its own air-conditioning brand, Alcool.
The youthful chief executive said the company had learnt the rudiments of the business and it was now ready to deepen its operations in the local market and expand to other African countries.
As part of activities marking its 10 anniversary, the company has inaugurated a head office complex, which also has space for assembling some of the products it markets.
He said the company already manufactures two of its products, and with the assembling coming on as its next phase of growth, it would create more jobs and help the economy reduce its heavy reliance on imported products, which affects the local currency negatively.
Alsale markets cash processing equipment under its own Alcount range of brands, with 12 models in three designs, which are currently competing with international brands on the local market.
The Alcount brand has about 60 per cent popularity among Ghanaian financial institutions. The range includes counterfeit detectors, coin counting machines, shrink wrap machines and note sorters.
“We are upbeat in the next 10 years. We are very hopeful things will go in the right direction. We believe in Ghana. The whole world’s economy is facing challenges and though 2014 has been challenging, it was also in 2014 that we built this edifice,” he said.
Mr Boakye, however, admitted that policy makers needed to fix some challenges such as the energy situation and also offer more support for local entrepreneurs.
“We have an assembly plant, so we need more hands and expertise. We need standards to work with and we cannot do these alone, but in collaboration with state institutions. This is where government support for the private sector comes in,” the CEO of Alsale Services stated.
He is hopeful that the same way that the Alcount brand has been able to compete with international brands in the local market, there are other local products that could equally be successful with the right support and proper marketing communications.
He charged the youth to be focused, nurture integrity and persevere, saying there is a lot of distraction but one has to keep the eye on the ball, and that integrity is key because it is the business person’s personal brand.
The company goes through stringent processes to recruit its staff and train them to discharge quality services and the CEO said one of the company’s strengths was to ensure that it worked with the right institutions and support service providers. GB