By MICHAEL EBOH
To navigate and survive the uncertainties expected to overwhelm Nigeria’s economic environment in 2012 and still deliver improved and reasonable returns to investors and stakeholders, businesses should adopt strategic initiatives bordering on the design and implementation of robust, well-structured and targeted competitive strategy, says Mr. Martins Oluba, Chief Possibility Officer, ValueFronteira Limited.

Oluba, in his weekly report, titled, 2012: Being competitive in Nigeria’s uncertain business environment, said businesses are expected to conduct proper competitive risk analysis, focusing on peculiarities and nature of their business, their evolutionary stage within the industry life cycle as well as possible future scenarios redefining the environment of business.

According to him, a combined futures and competitive risk analysis will have enabled adequate understanding of the business problems if done properly, adding that this should equally be accompanied with strategic questions to which appropriate analytic solutions will be applied.

Oluba identified the risks and potential uncertainties that will characterize the 2012 business environment to include the crisis in the global economic environment, government’s proposed fiscal programmes for the year, among others.

He said: “As we already know, the global economic environment is dotted with poor sustainability and debt outlook in many Eurozone countries, uncertainty in the United States’ fiscal policy outlook and the downward emerging market outlook. The impact of these outlooks can be evaluated against the background that Europe and the USA account for over 60 per cent of Nigeria’s exports.

“Oil accounts for over 70 per cent of total budget revenue which injects more volatility in Nigeria’s economic growth trajectory through a procyclical public expenditure profile.

He warned businesses on the need to ensure that they successfully navigate through various blocks of uncertainties and still deliver stakeholder value expectations through effective positioning to remain competitive.

According to him, one obvious truth is that in highly uncertain environments such as these, some businesses must be sacrificed for the survival and growth of others, while some more will be pushed further away from the centre of activity and closer to the precipice.

He said the fiscal programmes of government will lead to a rise in prices and costs of doing business, widespread drop in the demand for goods and services depending on relative and specific product and services price elasticities, greater rivalry for available transactions and increased payment delays and defaults.

Oluba further advised that business decision makers ensure that their decisions have minimal negative consequences before they embark on it, adding that in the absence of a more rigorous investigative and evaluative process and where substantially determining the negative outcomes and or unknown positive outcomes is difficult, businesses should adopt business analytic processes.

He said business analytics enhances speedy, better and much-more reliable decision-making, stressing that it equally deepens, strategic inquiry and consequently makes emerging insights more profound.