What business can I do in Nigeria?

Posted by Felix Okoli on Wednesday September 26, 2012 at 13:10:8:

If you are asking the question - "What business can I do in Nigeria?" then the question you should also be asking is "What can I really do?" or "What am I good at?".

Starting and running a profitable business in Nigeria requires that you invest in what you know rather than what you don't know and this is mostly important if you are the sole investor.

Considerations
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Things to consider when you want to start a business in Nigeria are things like:

- Your long term goals
- Your age and experience
- Would you be an active or passive investor?
- How much capital do you have?
- How much related business knowledge do you have?
- Is it product oriented or service oriented
- The Nigerian factors involved
- The business type

Types of businesses
Businesses one can start in Nigeria may be grouped as follows:

- Service oriented
- Product oriented

Service oriented:
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If your kind of business has to do with offering people something intangible but adds value to their life, then you are in the service oriented business. Sectors that these involve includes areas like:

- Hospitality
- Marketing
- Delivery
- Personal development
- Advertising
- Repairs and maintenance
- Counselling
- Job search
- Computer services

Product oriented:
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This is a kind of business that offers something tangible or physical to people in the market. This is something that can be touched and adds value to their life of your customers.

Some products you can deal with by either producing or reselling include the following:

- Food products: bottled water, Biscuit, plantain chips, noodles and food in general
- Construction materials e.g paving stones, cement blocks, heavy tools, measuring tools and so on
- Educational products eg. books, pens, bags, clothing.

Factors to consider
Some factors to consider when doing business in Nigeria:

- Huge population
- High mortality and birth rate
- Ethnic diversity
- Hot climate
- High level of poverty
- Capitalist economy
- Low taxation rate
- Low level of infrastructure

So think of the kind of product or service you can provide to Nigerians and you would already be in business.