By Adetokunbo Kosile-Palmer

Between 2019 and 2023, Nigeria’s manufacturing sector lost an estimated ₦1.2 trillion in value, equivalent to a 21% decline across multiple sub-sectors. A report on the country’s economy, following the GDP rebasing exercise of NBS, indicated that the country’s manufacturing sector declined sharply within this period.

This analysis reflected years of underutilized capacity, foreign exchange crises, and inefficiencies in production systems. For a country with a youthful workforce and vast domestic demand, the figure was not just alarming, it was a wake-up call.

Nigeria’s manufacturing sector continues to face significant headwinds from capacity underutilization, supply chain disruptions, and economic volatility. Rather than viewing the ₦1.2 trillion loss between 2019 and 2023 as a permanent setback, the current landscape presents an opportunity to rethink approaches to growth and resilience. For small and midsize enterprises, the key lies in adopting real-time business intelligence tools designed to translate operational data into actionable insights, without the need for specialized data science teams.

Adetokunbo Kosile-Palmer, a business strategist with business intelligence experience at Schneider Electric, has been among the advocates emphasizing that recovery must be data-driven. While at Schneider, she developed KPI-based dashboards that consolidated performance data across Northern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa, enabling executives to reallocate resources efficiently and cut reporting times by 50%.

“Numbers don’t lie,” Kosile-Palmer explains. “The ₦1.2 trillion loss is a symptom of missed signals, signals that could have been captured if firms were analyzing cost per unit, inventory cycles, or production downtime with precision. Business intelligence gives us the compass to avoid drifting into these losses again.”

In practice, Nigerian SMEs are beginning to harness affordable, user-friendly BI applications to monitor production metrics and financial flows more closely. Solutions such as Google Sheets, Power BI, Zoho, and platforms tailored for local needs like Tela, allow manufacturers to build dashboards that keep tabs on sales, inventory cycles, energy use, and expenditures – all critical levers for profitability and sustainability. Beyond the software, the bigger advantage is the ability to respond swiftly to changes: scheduling maintenance when early warnings appear, triggering restocking as inventory dips, or adjusting marketing spend based on live sales patterns. Real-time data visualization also supports agile collaboration among teams, making business decisions more evidence-based and reducing costly delays.

For those new to business intelligence, the journey starts with streamlining basic processes: digitizing records, automating invoice tracking, and integrating data from different functions onto a single dashboard. These foundational steps enable a shift from guesswork to precision, improving first-pass yields, curbing unnecessary rework, and preserving customer trust through on-time delivery. No-code BI tools and AI-powered analytics, increasingly accessible to SMEs in Nigeria, help even resource-constrained firms to close the gap with larger competitors. The strategic benefit is not only operational efficiency, but also better forecasting, market responsiveness, and the ability to navigate shocks in supply or demand with greater confidence.

Success stories from local SMEs reveal that the transition does not require wholesale restructuring or heavy investment. Instead, it hinges on setting clear priorities – choosing core KPIs to watch, creating a regular rhythm for data review, and acting promptly when trends emerge.

Kosile-Palmer’s perspective underscores the national importance of this shift. By starting small, scaling smart, and viewing business intelligence as a daily tool rather than an occasional fix, Nigerian manufacturers can build a new foundation for competitiveness and growth within reach of every operator.