Nigeria’s improving economic outlook will not automatically translate into stronger business performance unless organisations radically rethink how they compete in an increasingly value conscious marketplace, economist and Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of KAINOS EDGE Consulting Ltd., Dr. Doyin Salami, has warned.

Meanwhile, addressing business leaders during the ADVAN Executive Leadership Session, held immediately after the 2026 Annual General Meeting of the Advertisers Association of Nigeria (ADVAN) at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos, Salami declared that the rules governing growth have fundamentally changed.

Impressively, he therefore, compelled companies to redesign their strategies around affordability, consumer value, operational resilience and capital discipline.

Delivering a keynote presentation titled “The New Rules of Growth: Navigating Nigeria’s Evolving Economy and Consumer Landscape,” Salami challenged advertisers, marketers and corporate executives to move beyond traditional assumptions.

Again, about expansion, arguing that today’s economic environment rewards organisations capable of adapting quickly to disruption, regulation and rapidly evolving consumer expectations.

So, according to him, growth is no longer driven by economic expansion alone.

Rather, it now emerges from the interaction between the operating environment, business decisions, consumer behaviour and technological disruption, all of which are redefining how organisations create and sustain value.

He addition, he explained that businesses over the next 12 to 24 months must pay closer attention to the forces shaping the economy, particularly inflation.

Moreso, it includes exchange rate movements, consumer purchasing power, monetary policy and changing spending patterns, because those variables will increasingly determine competitive success.

Furthermore, Salami observed that while Nigeria’s macroeconomic indicators are gradually improving, consumers have yet to experience comparable relief.

Even then, he affirmed that although economic reforms are beginning to restore stability, household incomes remain under pressure, food prices continue to weigh heavily on family budgets and purchasing power has yet to recover meaningfully.

Consequently, he noted, affordability has become the dominant force influencing consumer decisions.

“Volume is replacing price,” Salami declared, explaining that businesses can no longer depend on repeated price increases to sustain growth.

Instead, organisations must attract more consumers, stimulate higher product usage and create stronger value propositions if they hope to expand revenues sustainably.

He stressed that companies capable of making their products more accessible without compromising quality will gain stronger market positions than those relying solely on premium pricing strategies.

Expanding the discussion to the global economy, Salami explained that the traditional drivers of economic growth have changed dramatically.

According to him, global expansion is increasingly determined by countries’ exposure to artificial intelligence, technological innovation, policy resilience and their ability to navigate an increasingly multipolar geopolitical environment.

Unlike previous decades when broad based economic activity powered growth across multiple industries, today’s global economy depends far more heavily on AI investment, government intervention and market confidence, making it considerably more vulnerable to external shocks.

Despite these uncertainties, he projected global economic growth at approximately 3.1 per cent in 2026, a figure that remains significantly below pre pandemic trends.

Emerging markets, he observed, continue demonstrating remarkable resilience, whereas energy importing economies face stronger headwinds as rising energy costs steadily erode household incomes and constrain consumer spending.

Turning to Nigeria, Salami painted a cautiously optimistic picture.He projected Nigeria’s economy to expand by approximately 4.1 per cent in 2026, outperforming global growth on the back of ongoing reforms, resilient domestic demand, improved policy stability and easing macroeconomic pressures.

Nevertheless, he warned that stronger GDP figures should not be mistaken for widespread prosperity.

Although Nigeria’s economy is expected to grow faster than the global average, the pace remains only marginally ahead of the country’s population growth rate of about 2.4 per cent, limiting the overall improvement in living standards.

Similarly, while headline inflation has moderated to 15.91 per cent, Salami maintained that price pressures remain structurally high.

He credited tighter monetary policy with slowing inflationary momentum and creating a more stable economic environment.

Yet he cautioned that persistently high food prices continue to constrain affordability, delaying the full transmission of economic recovery to ordinary consumers.

Against that backdrop, he identified three sectors currently driving Nigeria’s economic performance.

According to Salami, services remain the largest contributor to national output, agriculture continues to provide the backbone of economic resilience.

Meanwhile, the oil sector has regained momentum following recent policy reforms and improved production conditions.

On the other hand, public investment, increased government spending and a relatively more stable exchange rate have also contributed to the recovery.

However, he expressed concern that industrial activity continues to underperform relative to other sectors.

Although manufacturing has shown gradual improvement, its shrinking contribution to the broader economy raises important questions about Nigeria’s ability to generate sufficient formal employment and sustain inclusive long term growth.

Salami further noted that economic activity is becoming increasingly formalised even as a significant proportion of the labour force remains trapped within informal production systems.

Consequently, output growth has not translated into enough formal employment opportunities, raising fears of premature de industrialisation and weakening manufacturing led job creation.

He also highlighted widening income inequality as another structural challenge confronting the economy. Drawing on recent data, Salami observed that Nigeria’s top one per cent now accounts for 12.3 per cent of national income, compared with 10.2 per cent a decade earlier.

Meanwhile, the income share earned by the bottom half of the population has continued to decline, reflecting the growing concentration of wealth and purchasing power.

Even more striking, he noted, the country’s wealthiest one per cent now controls approximately 44.2 per cent of Nigeria’s total wealth, almost double its share two decades ago.

At the same time, multidimensional poverty has deepened, with approximately 133 million Nigerians now living below multidimensional poverty thresholds.

According to Salami, those realities continue reshaping household spending priorities. Consumers are increasingly directing expenditure towards healthcare, transportation, information and communication services, accommodation, restaurants and financial services while exercising greater caution across other discretionary categories.

Those changing consumption patterns, he argued, present both challenges and opportunities for businesses capable of responding quickly to evolving customer needs.

Using the Fast Moving Consumer Goods sector as an example, Salami demonstrated how inflation has fundamentally altered the relationship between pricing and sales performance.

Where businesses previously relied on higher prices to drive revenue growth, today’s marketplace increasingly rewards organisations capable of expanding sales volumes through affordability, innovation and consumer accessibility.

He therefore challenged executives to redesign product portfolios, pricing structures and go to market strategies around emerging consumption realities rather than historical assumptions.

Capital allocation, he added, has become another defining differentiator. Investors, according to Salami, have become far more selective, rewarding businesses that demonstrate financial discipline, operational efficiency and long term sustainability instead of aggressive expansion unsupported by strong fundamentals.

Likewise, regulation has evolved into a strategic business advantage. Rather than viewing compliance as a cost of doing business, Salami encouraged organisations to recognise regulatory intelligence as an increasingly important source of competitive differentiation.

Without doubt, he noted that it is capable of determining which industries expand, how companies compete and who ultimately leads the market.

He equally identified Nigeria’s youthful, digitally connected population as one of the country’s strongest long term growth advantages.

As technology adoption accelerates across financial services, e commerce, digital media and consumer markets.

Significantly, he argued that organisations capable of understanding changing digital behaviours will unlock substantial growth opportunities despite prevailing economic challenges.

Complementing Salami’s economic outlook, Crystal I. Berger, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of EBO and Vettify™, shifted attention to what she described as the next frontier of competitive advantage, trust.

Presenting a keynote address on “The Future of Brand Trust: Thriving in an AI Powered World,” Berger argued that the rapid rise of artificial intelligence has transformed trust from a communications objective into a strategic business asset.

She warned that deepfakes, synthetic media, AI generated content and digital misinformation have fundamentally altered how consumers evaluate brands, making credibility increasingly difficult to earn and even harder to retain.

Consequently, Berger urged organisations to invest deliberately in transparency, authenticity, verification systems and responsible engagement if they hope to build enduring customer relationships.

“Attention gets you noticed. Trust gets you chosen,” she remarked, insisting that organisations capable of establishing credible trust infrastructure today will become tomorrow’s market leaders.

Collectively, the keynote presentations challenged Nigerian business leaders to rethink conventional growth strategies.

Rather than pursuing expansion through pricing alone, the speakers urged organisations to embrace affordability, strengthen consumer trust, deploy capital more strategically, anticipate regulatory shifts and place innovation at the centre of long term competitiveness.

Imperatively, the ADVAN Executive Leadership Session reinforced a powerful conclusion.

As economic conditions, technology and consumer expectations continue to evolve simultaneously, future growth will belong not necessarily to the biggest organisations.

It will be increasingly, to those agile enough to understand changing realities, resilient enough to adapt quickly and trusted enough to remain the preferred choice of increasingly discerning consumers.