…Dr. Kwabena Adjei
By Innocent Samuel Appiah
THE GROUP Chairman of Kasapreko Company Limited (KCL), Dr. Kwabena Adjei has hinted that by building a local platform and engaging Ghanaian staff, Ghanaian ideas, Ghanaian drive and Ghanaian determination, indigenous Ghanaian indigenous companies can rub shoulders with multinational industries.
He said his dream is to showcase that Ghanaians are capable of doing great things, took his Company not only to win in Ghana but also to dominate in the West African region. He has described his workforce as a dynamic team at KCL, which propelled the Company to win several awards beginning from 1999.
Commenting on the recent award as the Second Most Respected Company in Ghana, which must be an overwhelming dream come true for its founder, Dr. Adjei noted that his work would not be complete unless he sees the little indigenous dream he established some 23 years ago finally becomes a multinational one.
He contended that it is his dream also to hand over the Company to his children who will also hand equally pass it on to their children, and thus becomes a generational Company.
The award was conferred on the Company by Price WaterHouse Coopers and the Business and Financial Times. The Company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Martyn Mensah similarly emerged as the “Third Most Respected CEO,” in Ghana.
The event, which was held on the theme: “growing the Leadership and Talent Pipeline,” sought to reward the most outstanding corporate personalities and organizations through a peer review mechanism, which covered over 300 heads of organizations.
Over 300 CEOs of medium to large organizations participated in the biennial opinion survey conducted amongst CEOs of various organizations in Ghana. The survey was on their perception of their peers’ vision and innovation, high ethical standards, promotion of human capital development, good corporate governance and harmonious industrial relations, unique and excellent leadership style, strong brands, excellent business culture and high stakeholders’ value, ethics and code of conduct, among others.
The objective of this year’s awards was to crystallize how industry has grown leadership and talent over the years. As the stage is being set for the country to become the leading middle income economy in West Africa, it is expected that the survey will help identify what current business leaders are doing to identify, nurture and grow leadership talent to sustain economic and social transformation.
Dr. Adjei, who is the Founder of KCL, noted that Management was committed to the Company’s dream of putting the name of Ghana firmly on the map of leading African companies, emphasizing that, that dream is firmly on course as the Company’s products are exported to some African countries such as Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Liberia, Cameroon, Liberia, Southern Sudan, among others.
From its initial founding group of five workers, KCL now employs over 200 people with another 800 suppliers and vendors. The large market demand of the company’s products both locally and internationally has stirred the leadership of the company to acquire a 7,500-square metre production floor, housing a $35million ultramodern plant to meet its growing demand.
The plant has the highest machine speed spirit line across the globe, and two state-of-the-art bottling lines, with one producing 30,000 bottles an hour while the second one produces 40,000 an hour.
In line with meeting the high market demand and to ensure continuous production, a 3,000 cubic-metre capacity water storage reservoir, which is equivalent to three million litres, has been commissioned recently.
Just freshly, KCL emerged the Manufacturing Company of 2011 by the Ghana Club 100 rankings held recently in Accra as well as placing the sixth position and for that matter, becomes the number one indigenous Company in Ghana.
The Third Most Respected CEO in Ghana, Mr. Mensah, intimated that the secret of the Company’s success is its motto of “Stepping Beyond Excellence” in all it does, and stressed that the Company is blessed with a committed workforce, a dedicated supplier-base and a loyal customer-base who have rewarded them with their quest for excellence.
He said a CEO is as good as the team he leads, and that Ghanaians must begin to look to the new generation and begin to think about how to empower their teams, saying, “It really a humbling experience for us.”
Commenting on the awards, Mr. Martyn Mensah said KCL was all about possibility thinking, tracing the roots of the Company; how it all started as a small home-grown business and has metamorphosed into a well-acclaimed Company that has carved a niche for itself in the beverage industry both within and outside, and for that matter, it has today become the Second Most Respected Company in Ghana.
He maintained that KCL is a Company that epitomizes what can be achieved with a clear vision, discipline and the determination to realize that vision.
“There is something quite unique about KCL- the founder, Dr. Kwabena Adjei is a man who is obsessive always of getting things done and done properly. If you look at the way in which he approaches business; in the past 10 years, everything that we have done, we did it as we were a multinational Company- whether it is a new product launch or entering into a new market, whether in the recruitment of personnel or in the management system.
“Indeed, if you look at our current investment in our new factory plant, you will find that we have invested ahead of the curve. Most manufacturing companies have invested in capacity that will see them through, maybe, the next two to three years. We have invested in capacity that not only is modern but is large enough to see us through to 2017 or 2018 conservatively,” he noted.
Mr. Mensah added that management has gone a step ahead to bring in people with the knowledge of how these systems work in the first world, as a means of transferring technology and knowledge to them, saying that the Company would continue the drive of using the local skills set.
The brand name of Kasapreko, which has become a household name in the alcoholic beverages industry in Ghana and beyond, was derived from the Paramount Chief of the Wassa Amenfi Traditional Area, and President of the Wassa Traditional Council, Nana Kasapreko Kwame Bassanyin III.
Combining the best from the Ghanaian heritage with herbal science and state-of-the-art manufacturing technology, KCL strives to deliver products that offer a multiplicity of benefits to the end consumer.
Kasapreko’s vision differs from that of other alcoholic beverage producers in the country in that it identifies the increasing sophistication of the consumer.
It rapidly ascended to the leadership position in the Gin market with their “Kasapreko Dry Gin”, which became the gin of choice for consumers.