Strategy consulting and implementation

Strategy consulting for boards and executive teams in Nigeria

Most organisations in Nigeria do not lack a strategy document. They lack a strategy that survives contact with the operating environment: a currency that moves, costs that rise faster than prices, and a market that rewards speed over planning. Carthena Advisory works with boards and executive teams to make the few choices that matter, fund them properly and build the discipline to carry them through.

Our work answers three questions. Where should the organisation compete? How will it win there? What must it build, stop or buy to do so?

Corporate strategy

Corporate strategy decides where a group should invest, hold or exit. We assess each business on the value it creates, the capital it consumes and its position against competitors, then set out the portfolio choices, from growth investments and new markets to divestments. Where the choice is to enter a new market, the work continues into market entry and go-to-market strategy.

Strategic plans

A strategic plan earns its place only if it changes how resources are allocated. Ours start from a fact base on the market, the competition and the organisation's own economics, then narrow to a small number of priorities with owners, budgets and milestones. The plan typically covers 3 to 5 years, with targets for the first year set in the detail a management team can run against.

Strategy retreats and sessions

Many strategic plans are shaped in a few days away from the office. We design and facilitate strategy retreats for boards and senior management teams, prepare the fact base in advance, run the sessions so that disagreements are resolved on evidence, and turn the conclusions into a written plan within days rather than months.

Strategy implementation

Execution is where strategy succeeds or fails. We set up the governance that keeps a strategy moving: a small transformation office, a dashboard of the measures that matter, a monthly review rhythm and a clear process for escalating decisions. We build these inside the client's own teams, so the discipline remains after we leave.

Strategy in a volatile economy

A strategy built for Nigeria has to hold when the exchange rate, interest rates and input costs move sharply within a single year. We build each plan around a small number of scenarios, identify the signals that show which one is unfolding, and set in advance the decisions leadership will take if they appear. The organisation then adjusts on evidence rather than rewriting the plan every time conditions change.

Signs a strategy needs revisiting

• Revenue is growing, but margins and cash are not.
• The leadership team describes the priorities differently.
• Capital goes to whichever project is argued most loudly.
• The plan was written before the last devaluation or rate cycle and has not been tested since.
• New competitors are winning customers the business considered its own.

Strategy for public institutions

Public institutions face the same strategic questions under different constraints: a mandate set by law, budgets set by appropriation and stakeholders who measure success differently. We help ministries, agencies and government-owned enterprises turn their mandates into strategies they can deliver, alongside our institutional strengthening work.

How an engagement runs

1. Diagnose. Market, competitive and financial analysis, with interviews across the leadership team.
2. Choose. Options developed and tested with the board, usually through a facilitated strategy session.
3. Plan. Priorities, owners, budgets, milestones and measures.
4. Implement. Governance, dashboards and review support for the first year.

Why Carthena

Carthena Advisory has completed more than 70 projects in 12 sectors. Our strategy work is built on our Strategic Synergy Integration approach, which tests whether an organisation's beliefs, its structures and its people's capabilities support the strategy it has chosen, because most strategies fail where those three disagree. We pair it with economic intelligence on Nigerian and African markets, so every plan rests on a realistic view of the environment it must survive.