The Director of Metrology at the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA), Mr. Prince I. K. Arthur, has charged businesses to be innovative to keep pace with the increasingly competitive markets.
For businesses to compete and be successful in today’s markets, Mr. Arthur observed that they have to adopt robust management systems to meet the demands and expectations of their customers.
The Management System Certification (MSC) specifies processes to control activities and resources of an organisation to achieve specified goals and objectives and it also creates an organisational culture that engages in a continuous cycle of self-evaluation, correction and improvement of operations and processes.
Mr. Arthur, who was speaking at the maiden Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the GSA’s Management Systems Certification Scheme, said customers, governments and other stakeholders globally, are pressuring businesses to adopt management systems. Systems that guarantee consistent quality, prevent pollution and waste as well as protect the health of workers in today’s fiercely competitive global market, he added.
He said, “the competition in the international markets is intense and this calls for innovation and application of tools such as management systems to propel your businesses to the top.”
The Head of the GSA’s Systems Certification Scheme, Mr. Emmanuel Asare, explaining what the scheme entails and what is required of stakeholders, noted that the AGM was meant to advance discussions about the scheme to help them achieve their goals.
Some of the stakeholders stressed that more publicity and training programmes on the scheme should be held regularly for businesses to properly understand and effectively implement it.
The Marketing Manager, ASHFOAM, Joe Ampem-Darko, for instance, said GSA should intensify their publicity on the scheme and organise more training. “The training is very important because it helps us maintain and improve the system we are implementing,” he added.
Among the participants, in the AGM, were Commodity Exchange, ASHFOAM Ltd., Dangote Cement Ghana Ltd., Airways Catering, Tamale Public Health Lab, Nano Foods Company, and Devtraco.
The GSA’s Management Systems Scheme, established in 2010 and accredited by DAkkS (German Accreditation Body), provides certification services that are recognised globally, to promote industrial efficiency and assist Ghanaian enterprises to get access to the competitive (international) market.
The Management System (MS) can be implemented by any enterprise or organisation in any sector, whether Public or Private no matter the size of the organisation.