What’s the Next New Thing in Strategy?

The Question That Keeps Businesses Stuck

Imagine a business roundtable in GRA where a manufacturer raises a familiar question: “What’s the latest strategy framework we should adopt for expansion? The facilitator paused, then responded with something unexpected: “Before looking for new frameworks, have you tested whether your current strategy passes basic checks?”

The room became quiet. Because here’s the truth most Ilorin businesses avoid, they’re importing strategies from Lagos, Kano, or abroad without asking whether those approaches fit the specific realities of operating between Fate Road and Offa Garage.

Recent research shows that most companies pass fewer than four out of ten fundamental strategy tests. They’re basic questions that determine whether your business survives the next three years or becomes another cautionary tale whispered in industry associations.

Why Ilorin Businesses Copy Without Questioning

Visit any business association meeting from Challenge to Post Office area, and you’ll hear familiar patterns. Every agro-processor wants to replicate what worked in Ibadan. Every manufacturer references what companies in Lagos are doing.

But when you look closer, these businesses haven’t asked whether imported strategies match their actual competitive position. They’re copying tactics that worked in markets with different infrastructure, different customer behaviours, and different supply chain realities.

A cassava processor in Ilorin faces completely different economics than one in Ogun State, even if they’re making the same product. Access to steady power, distance to major highways, labor cost structures, customer concentration, everything differs. Yet businesses keep copying surface-level tactics without understanding the underlying conditions that made those tactics work elsewhere.

This happens because copying feels less risky than thinking independently. Following what “successful” companies do seems safer than building something specific to your situation. The result? Businesses that look good in planning but struggle when market forces hit them.

What Strategy Actually Means for Your Business

Remove every business book you’ve read, and strategy becomes simple: making specific choices about where and how to compete that create advantages competitors can’t easily replicate.

Creating genuine, defensible advantage in a market constantly pushing every business toward average performance. Because markets don’t care about your intentions. Your suppliers want better payment terms. Your customers want fair prices. Your competitors want your market share. New entrants want to undercut your pricing. Substitutes want to make your product category irrelevant.

The Ten Questions Your Strategy Must Answer

Before copying another business model, test your strategy against these questions. Be brutally honest.

Foundation: Do You Actually Have Strategy?

1. Will your strategy beat the market?

Most Ilorin businesses compete by doing what everyone in their sector does, just hoping to execute better. That’s not strategy. That’s hope. Real strategy requires being different in ways customers value. Ask yourself: if someone compared you to your top three competitors, could they explain a genuine difference? If not, you’re selling a commodity regardless of what you call it.

2. Does it tap a true source of advantage?

This is where strategy testing usually fails. Businesses claim advantages they don’t have. “We have better quality” isn’t an advantage if competitors can match your quality in three months. “We’ve been operating longer” isn’t an advantage if a new entrant can buy the same equipment and hire experienced staff from your sector.

Real advantages come from structural positions (like having the only processing facility within 50km of a raw material source) or capabilities that took years to build (like proprietary drying technology that reduces processing time by 40%).

3. Is your strategy granular about where you compete?

Quite a number of businesses think broadly; “we serve Kwara State” or “we target wholesalers.” But 80% of growth comes from being specific about where you compete, not how you compete. A grain merchant who segments by buyer type (feed mills versus food processors versus export aggregators) will outperform one who treats “wholesalers” as one category. Each segment has different quality requirements, payment terms, delivery expectations, and pricing dynamics.

Insight: Do You See What Competitors Miss?

4. Are you ahead of trends, or just reacting?

When better road networks started connecting Ilorin to other state capitals more efficiently, some logistics businesses saw the opportunity early and positioned themselves for longer routes. Others waited until everyone noticed, then competed in an already crowded space.

Look at what’s happening at the edges of your market right now. What are the most forward-thinking players in your sector doing differently? What’s working in Lagos that could apply here? What changes in regulatory environment, infrastructure, or customer behaviour are just starting to show up?

5. Does your strategy rest on privileged insights?

Every business can access the same trade association reports, the same government data, the same industry analysis. That information has zero competitive value because everyone has it. Privileged insights come from seeing what others overlook, usually by directly engaging with customers instead of assuming what they want.

One furniture manufacturer in Tanke may discover through customer visits that buyers weren’t choosing based on wood quality (what every competitor emphasised) but on delivery reliability and assembly service. That insight, gained from conversations, is a positioning advantage worth millions.

6. Does your strategy embrace uncertainty instead of ignoring it?

Ilorin businesses face real uncertainty: naira volatility, power supply inconsistency, raw material price swings, regulatory changes. Most respond by either pretending they can predict everything or refusing to plan at all.

Both approaches fail. Better strategy testing requires identifying what you genuinely cannot predict, then building plans that work under different scenarios. You don’t need to predict the next diesel prices. You need a strategy that remains profitable whether diesel costs ₦800 or ₦1,200 per litre.

What’s Coming Next: The Execution Tests

We’ve walked through six strategy tests; the foundation and insight questions. These tests expose whether you have a real strategy. But knowing where to compete and what insights you have means nothing if you can’t execute. In part 2, we’ll look at the next four tests that determine whether your strategy survives.