SCALING-UP FROM START-UP TO BIG BUSINESS: A CASE STUDY OF ZOOMLION GHANA LIMITED AND DABEN CLEANSING SERVICES LIMITED.

ABSTRACT Small businesses form about 92% of businesses in Ghana. There is a lack of understanding as to why most firms stay stagnated in business several years after inception. This paper presents the results of a case study conducted on two waste management companies in Ghana; Daben Cleansing Services Limited and Zoomlion Ghana Limited. The purpose of the case study was to identify and analyse the major challenges that prevent most start-ups in Ghana from scaling-up to large businesses. The research also proposes ideas that can facilitate the upscaling of small businesses to large businesses and finally makes some policy recommendations. The result of the research indicated that the reason why some businesses are unable to scale-up could be attributed to the fact that decisions are often personalised by the owners instead of involving experts to take decisions and run the business in a manner that will be in the best interest of the business. Also, most businesses focus too much on the external challenges and fail to identify the internal challenges that could be worked on to improve the business. Lessons from the case study are that owners of businesses should learn to commit the management of the business to experts, see challenges as opportunities to improve the company, make use of partnerships, must be innovative and invest in research and development. Better implementation of policies by authorities must also be ensured.