From finance to technology, movies to theatre, industries across the board are grappling with challenges posed by inflation, supply chain disruptions, and shifting consumer behaviours.
In light of these issues, industry experts have outlined strategic insights to help businesses navigate economic uncertainties.
At the BusinessDay CEO Forum on Thursday, Juliet Ehimuan, executive in Residence at the Lagos Business School, listed adaptive strategies for businesses to scale through the country’s economic challenges.
She said that leveraging digital technologies helps businesses stay current with trends and enhances their operational capabilities. Adding that, “From automation to data analytics, embracing digital solutions can lead to increased productivity and better decision-making.”
She emphasised the importance of businesses thinking about costs and adapting cost optimisations accordingly.
According to her, “This includes reducing waste and eliminating predictable redundancies. By streamlining operations and focusing on efficiency, companies can better manage their resources in a volatile economic environment.”
Ehimuan also disclosed that the complexity of human behaviour and market dynamics necessitates a quick response from both the government and private businesses. Adding that timely actions can mitigate the adverse effects of economic shocks.
Bolanle Austen-Peters, a movie director/producer at Terra Kulture, said “Nigerians are predominantly young, and these young people want to be involved in art, music, fashion, and every activity that brings out their potential.”
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According to her, music is borderless and requires very little infrastructure, with Nigerians outside who are exporting our culture, a lot of people are listening to Nigerian content, accepting it, and they are beginning to see it as part of popular culture globally.
Austen-Peters said, “Music has transcended not because they are particularly super skilled, the same skill resides in the film space, fashion space, and all the areas you call arts. The problem is, those areas need infrastructure and they need support and multiple talents to pull together to create one content.”
To survive these challenges, Austen-Peters said “Founders in the art space in Nigeria should keep pushing to ensure that the movie industry survives, when Nigeria lacked streaming platforms, Netflix and Amazon stepped in, these are international platforms that have stepped in for Nigerian movies to scale globally.”
She pointed out that as a result of these, Nigerian movies have become number one globally on Netflix with a budget of less than a million dollars. Although Netflix and Amazon have invested billions of dollars in various content that have failed whole fully, yet Nigerian contents that spent less continue to strive in that space.
Olubunmi Kuku, Managing Director of Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) said “Nigeria plays a dynamic role in the aviation industry. We are one of the top when it comes to passenger traffic in the world and also in the number of airports we have within our airport management company.”
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the sector’s contribution to real GDP in Q1 of 2024 was 1.18 percent. She said that to improve further, FAAN is implementing cost reduction measures, using sustainable business models like outsourcing junior staff, and working towards revenue diversification.
“Our revenue is very dependent on aeronautic revenue (80 percent) and 20 percent from non-aeronautical revenue,” she said.
She also mentioned that they are looking to get tax incentives and special economic zone incentives. “It is important that we become an envisioned organisation at FAAN,” she said. According to her, FAAN is taking both business sustainability measures and environmental sustainability measures.
“We are introducing electric buses, leveraging solar in some of our airports are some of the initiatives we are embarking on to reduce our carbon emission,” she said.
In the power sector, Funmi Ogbue, Co-Founder of Zigma, disclosed that reliance on the central grid to improve Nigeria’s power sector will not yield significant developments.
According to her, the country can’t provide enough power capacity through the central grid to address Nigeria’s lack of energy access.
Currently, more than 85 million Nigerians lack access to grid power, while many others face unreliable supply. These challenges force many Nigerian families and businesses to rely on expensive, emission-intensive gasoline and diesel backup generators
The country has also experienced incessant grid collapse in the first seven months of the year. For context, seven total grid collapses were recorded in 2024.
“We pivot and increase our credits to renewable energy. So we’re trying to develop new grids,” she said while talking about what Zigma is doing to bridge this gap.
According to her, that is the primary step in expanding the power sector. “So, we are looking at that space by contributing to the delivery.”
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