Internet Adoption, an Alternative Marketing Tool for the Ghanaian Timber Industry
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Date
2008-08-24
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Abstract
Marketing of Ghana's timber abroad started in the 1900s mainly by foreign merchants and some few local Political elites like Paa Grant. (BOG, 2004) Exports in this era were mainly round logs to Europe.
A major setback to effective marketing of Ghana's wood products has been the lack and unavailability of information in the global setting (BOG, op cit). TIDD's major mode of operatic which is by participating in and organizing Trade Fairs as a means of promoting Ghana' s wood appears to be expensive and inadequate. The time has come for the firms to effectively undertake their own research into new markets and innovative products by taking advantage of the benefits that the internet brings in promoting themselves and their products and adopting other market enti options.
The problem at hand therefore is: The non competitive performance of the Ghana Timber Industry in the world market and the minimal use of the internet, which is seen as an enabling tool to improve the performance of the industry in the global market.
The objective of the study is to explore the possibility of the Ghanaian Timber Industry to use the internet to access information in a networked world in order to be more competitive in the global market.
The study was based on Timber firms in Ghana that exported their products in 2005. According to TIDD reports, there were 241 firms that fell into this category.
Sampling was done by purposely selecting the top 25 timber firms on the basis of the value of their exports which constituted 80percent of total value of exports during the period.Data for the work was collected mainly by administering questionnaires to and interviewing key representatives of the sampled firms. Institution and agencies involved in all stages of the timber, i.e. Growth, production and marketing cycle were visited.
The response indicates that though all the respondents use the internet, less than 30% of them use it for promoting themselves and their products. Even with the few that use the internet, most of them have not updated their records since they hosted their sites.
In conclusion, the timber industry has been a major contributor to the development of Ghana and continues to play this role very significantly. However its negative effect on the environment cannot be gainsaid. For the industry to maintain and improve on its level of contribution, very competitive prices should be received for the products. The case of Tasmania where a reduction in volume of export in 2002, was accompanied by an increase in revenue
obtained after introducing internet marketing in its timber industry, (Ridley, J. & G.) is worthy of
emulation.
Description
A Thesis submitted to the School of Business Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration, 2008