SYCAMORE

Executive summary

In the last 12 months especially over the last six, Ghana cannot overestimate its scale or impact
regarding the financial crisis, or effect it will have in years to come. The financial system has
tremendously changed with respect to the change in the market position.2009 will continue to be
a difficult year and financial regardless of the stringent measures taken to fight the high
inflationary rate and gross domestic product reducing as a result of the poor performance of
certain contributors to over GDP. The past financial year has presented us both an opportunity
and threat for the foreseeable future.
Despite the high economic downturn, certain pointers in the macro economic view of the
Ghanaian economy gives the impression that there is enough profit being made to sustain the
economy in general. Even though the global economy gives no hope for the present coupling with
financial intellectual failure. It was believed and said by
many academia in the monetary policy field that the development of the model to securitize
credit, structured credit, and financial support of any king has lead to the unavailability of credit
at any cost.
Ghana being an agro- based economic dependant still has a lot of unseen credit of cash in hand
available to the vast majority of farmers and lying dormant. A typical example is the dominant
farming population of Kumasi a town in Ghana that has over the years sustained the agro-
industry immensely thereby contributing to GDP of Ghana.

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OWNERSHIP.

Dr A. B. Managing Partner
Dr. N. A. (partner)
Mr. G. M. (partner)

Managing Committee

Managing director
Company secretary
Chief accountant
Sales manager
Marketing
IT Director
Human resource Manager
Objectives

• To harness dormant cash from rural farmers

• To promote saving
• To act as support to rural farmers to acquire credit
• To organise investment awareness campaigns
• To engage in rural development
• To support rural talents and to alleviate poverty

Mission Statement
Sycamore, seek more

Our mission is to create wealth and increase the safe management of finance for our rural
customers.
We also seek to help with other investment packages both home and abroad and could act as
business advisors to individual farmers.
Sycamore will be the mediator between farmers and their customer advising them on all legalities
relating contracts and trusts.

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o To pilot rural investment package programmes to farmers. The brand will target rural
areas which are predominantly farmers and create an opportunity that will cultivate and
propagate the habit of saving money rather than keeping them at home,

Start up capital will be $45000 which will be made of

• $30000 contributed by partners

• $7000 Loan

• $5000 Equipment

• $3000 Other

Rent and Rates are expected to be $3000 for a quarter

Operation costs and Miscellaneous are forecasted for$ 3000

Motor vehicles cost are forecasted for $6000 a quarter

All other expenses will be taken up by Partners and absorbed as such.

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Out of the $45000, we will run the business with due diligence employing all our
experiences and knowledge of the market and general economic situation. We will deem
it possible to minimize cost in all departments and effectively reducing normal losses to
make profit.

We will institute in a place a cost benefit analysis system which will be revised monthly
to make sure that resources are been efficiently used and targeted at making profit.

All expenses and income will be monitored by an effective accountancy team with very
up to date software to enhance professionalism.

Company location

Sycamore will be located in the central region of Ghana nad officed at Kumasi. Kumasi is
a town with about 3 million population which are 70% predominantly farmers. The
farmers own medium to large size farms and contribute to 45% of the total agro
consumption of the whole country.

Chief crops such as Cocoa , timber, Csahew and rubber plants are the leading cultivated
crops and contributes immensely to GDP of Ghana.

The farmers are mostly semi -literate and illiterates but controls a large chunk of the
country’s capital to GDP.

An office complex will be rented to do the purposes of running the day-to day affairs of
the business.

Products

There are going to be a wide range of financial products. The farmers which includes

• Savers account

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• Investment product

• Treasury bills

• Bonds

• Market training

The products are carefully made to suit the level of understanding of the rural people.
Farmers in the area are generally known of keeping large volumes of monies in their
homes, on their farms and even in holes. They will be educated on the essence of buying
products like the savers package which will accrue interest if not withdrawn for a quarter.

Market Research

Kumasi happens to be one of the most vibrant agricultural towns in Ghana with Over 2
million farmer population. The farmers are basically the controllers of the nations money.
Exporting cash crops overseas with the help of agents and making reasonable profit out
of the proceeds.

$2million dollars was said to have been made out of the export of cocoa in a quarter from
Kumasi to Ireland and the proceeds from other crops exported abroad and sold within the
country was very high.

Since most of the farmers are semi-literate and the rest illiterates the encounter problems
managing their money in order that it will grow.

Competitive advantage

Currently there is no such like company in Kumasi and farmers have to travel over 300
miles to have their money saved in the bank. Because of the town not having proper
roads and even electricity all the Big Banks and other financial institutions like sycamore
do not venture starting an office there.

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 o Sycamore realising the opportunity in the vast market will like to take our products
proximity to them. Despite the unavailability of electricity in the town we will rely on a
generated plant to provide the office with electricity and enhance the usage of IT. 4.3
SWOT Analysis

The following SWOT analysis captures the key strength and weaknesses within the
company, and describes the opportunities and threats of the brand

 4.3.1
Strengths

• A unique, local brand for rural market

• Excellent management team and staff who are highly trained and very customer attentive.
• Great product range.
• Easily accessible.
• The ability to grow due to market size

 Weaknesses

• Brand infancy
• Inexperienced in running a business
• Government intervention.

 Opportunities

• Early entry into the market

• The constant growth of the number of customers as new quality product available at the market.
• No competitor near by

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  4.3.4 Threats

• The entry into the market by other established company.

• New production into the market. And colluding by big firms
• Customers loyalty to brand could be assured

Operating Strategy

The organisation will have rural employees who will be trained to help in the introduction of the
brand and to assure the safety of customers savings. There will be seminars held in town
communal areas with the help of the rural employees to establish confidence.
Packages and awards will be given to first time savers with the bank and be classed into various
levels with each level and the package of financial benefits associated with it.

Agricultural advice and the usage of modern farm tools will be some of the packages used to
induce product purchase and will offer export advice to all our customers who engage in them.
The organisation will target 200,000 customers out of the over 2 million in the fourth quarter and
encourage regular savings and buying other long term products with the assured interest accruing.
We remain determined to ensure that our staff are highly motivated to achieve or target and to re-
enforce them to deal with all fairly and effectively to achieve our target. We will devote resources
towards this direction and will ensure they are achieved.

We will have monthly review of both field and office staff appraising them and motivating them
to work with maximum zeal and effort to meet targets.
We will constantly resume training when its needed and will institute a more conventional way of
appraising staff.
Customers will be contacted via face to face and in other ways appropriate to enrich relationship
an institute our culture getting near our customers.

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We will monitor new customers and create packages for loyal customers organising an awards
durbar at every quarter announce our presence and re-introduce our brand.

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Sales forecast

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MONT CUSTM SALES($)
HS ERS

JANU 1000 30000

ARY

FEBR 2500 45000

UARY

MARC 3000 50000

H

APRIL 3500 55000

MAY 4000 60000

JUNE 4500 60000

JULY 6000 60000

AUGU 6500 70000

ST

SEPTE 8000 70000

MBER

OCTO 8500 70000

BER

NOVE 10000 80000

MBER

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 DECE 11000 90000
MBER
100
80
60
East
40 West
20 North
0
1st 2nd 3rd 4th
Qtr Qtr Qtr Qtr

Finance and accounting

Our chief accountant and the team will be responsible for managing all quarterly budget
and preparing day to day accounts and also preparing quarterly financial accounting
statements.

They will also be responsible for carrying out internal auditing to ensure that all financial
accounting and reporting standards are followed and that there is due diligence which
they will report to the partners for control purposes

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