The Epistles

Establishing and building a strong business plan in Ghana four years back was the best thing that could happen to the youth. According to “Statista”, approximately ninety-two thousand enterprises were recorded as registered businesses in Ghana in the year 2019 alone.

The. business sector was booming – but suddenly; the Covid 19 era hit and everything promising about many ventures dwindled.

1. What actually happened to these enterprises?

2. Why couldn’t they be revived?

The Covid ‘19 virus came with so many unforeseen circumstances.90% plus of the entire African population wasn’t prepared for what the pandemic presented.

Not that a pandemic is a new thing as there have been several before now; talk of “the Spanish flu of 1918 which ended approximately fifty million lives, the Hong Kong flu, HIV- AIDS, the Swine flu of 2009, Malaria outbreak and many others.

The only difference is you and I experienced this in our prime and we are alive to talk about it!

According to the Economist, (a British weekly newspaper that focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture) the global economy came to its knees. It described the pandemic as an enormous synchronized global economic shock on a scale which hadn’t been seen since the second world war.

With a widespread lockdown and other factors, the global economic battery died and we needed a jumpstart.

Quicker than ever, many businesses had to improvise and replan their strategies in approaching their target markets, a genuine plan at which many failed. The disappointment wasn’t only on the part of entrepreneurs but equally or worse, affected many of the employees of noble firms across regions.

Companies had to downsize and lay off workers to stay afloat and keep their expenditure at par or close to revenue. The value of some consumables had to drop drastically to entice the uninterested general population who were more inclined to surviving now than anything else. On the contrary, other products became too expensive due to the rise in demand.

In many ways the crisis that the Covid era brought, broke, bent, squeezed and suffocated many into taking decisions against their will for the best outcome.

The bitter truth we must face is that in the grand scheme of things, there are times when one must truly be willing to risk more than necessary in order to simply survive or make more out of a seemingly tough situation.

Working from home became the order of day which if we must be honest, wasn’t great for some businesses.

I may explain into detail the situational impact of the Covid 19 on businesses, both great and small in other articles yet to come, but the impact we all experienced can be pictured under areas like tourism, revenue drop in international trade owing to low employment rate hence low manufacturing birthing low productivity, abnormal changes in interest rates and the ripple effect goes on.

We were made to adjust to the era as our new reality and this caused many to give up the pursuit of plans, dreams and aspirations.

People hit rock bottom and just laid there in pain, became attached to the new normal and gave up completely, reminiscing about the fall and not planning the next move forgetting that when you keep going down and down, failing, falling, until you finally hit your version of rock bottom, the only way there is “UP”.

The main purpose of this article is to encourage and motivate the few business men who have fallen out of their game, the youth who have lost hope and the ones who perceive all to be lost. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

As a Christian and a growing businessman, I have come to resort to the scriptures for information on how to move forward when all seem to be lost. One scripture that has constantly guided my thought pattern is “1 Corinthians 10:13, that the Lord our God is faithful and will not allow for us to be tempted than we can handle”.

 We thought the pandemic will last for ages. We thought things will never be normal. We foresaw ourselves wearing masks until probably 2030 but here we stand with things almost back to normal like the pandemic never happened. We survived! We prevailed!

In the book of Genesis 41, the bible makes familiar the topic of a situational hazard called famine. In the land of Egypt a young man named Joseph, bruised and sold out to slavery, imprisoned for a crime he never committed and still stayed committed and dedicated to his call, rises through the ranks and becomes second in command to the Pharaoh of the land. That is where God is looking to place you if you will not give up. In the final verse of Genesis 41, the bible states “And all the countries came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in all the world.”

There is a bigger picture for you to behold and work towards as a growing business and you don’t want to lose sight of it.

As an old man once said “You can’t cry about what is in your plate when your whole goal was to eat.”

It is time for business!