9th Jospong Leadership Conference underway in Accra
The Jospong Leadership Conference aimed at promoting business sustainability and positive work ethics in organisations began at the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College (GAFCSC) at Teshie in Accra yesterday.
The five-day conference is on the theme: "Sustaining business gains through operational excellence".
Advertisement
The conference, which is being participated by more than 2,000 people via zoom and in-person, is expected to close on January 22, 2022.
This year’s conference, the ninth in the series, is being organised in collaboration with the GAFCSC.
Capacity enhancement
The Executive Chairman of the Jospong Group of Companies (JGC), Mr Joseph Siaw Agyepong, said businesses needed to enhance their capacity periodically to be able to sustain their operations, especially in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“You will all agree with me that in every business, especially our kind of business, there is always at least one area that could be enhanced and made better,” he said.
According to him, operational excellence was not only about parching holes or making little changes to the current way of doing things; it required a considered and intentional look at business processes, followed by drastic and instant actions to set a business apart from others.
“We need to understand our businesses today and bring innovations to make them excellent for tomorrow. Operational excellence can better be achieved through constant monitoring and the re-evaluation of our operations.
“Last year, we set ourselves to build a formidable future beyond the COVID-19, and our performance in the past year attests to this, but we cannot rest on our laurels. We need to fine-tune and perfect our operations,” he added.
According to him, “we are not in a race with anyone but to fulfill our destiny as God has mandated us to do; we can only be a better version of ourselves”.
Human capital
Using the JGC as an example, Mr Agyepong said the management of the group believed that its human capital was the bedrock of its success.
In the past year, he said, the group embarked on various capacity-building drives to ensure that workers were given the opportunity to learn new technologies and current market trends.
To that effect, he said, 11 courses were organised by the Jospong Academy involving 473 participants from over 32 subsidiaries of the company.
The courses cut across management, leadership, basic information technology (IT), customer service, administration efficiency, occupational health and safety, team building and business process optimisation, he said.
He added that the programmes were facilitated by the University of Ghana, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and consultants.
Collaboration
The Commandant of the GAFCSC, Rear Admiral Moses Beick-Baffour, commended the JGC for the strong collaboration with the college in the organisation of the programme.
“I believe this gesture will strengthen the relationship between our two institutions. Indeed, today’s business environment presents numerous challenges which call for new and innovative solutions to survive and take advantage of opportunities,” he said.
He said the conference would offer participants many perspectives on global issues, the reason the resource persons were selected from around the world.
According to the commandant, the prevalence of the COVID-19 pandemic called for innovative ways of doing business by companies and other entities to achieve goals.
“It is important to note that no single entity can rely on its strength, and that is why it requires collaborative effort to make visions a reality,” Rear Admiral Beick-Baffour added.