How consulting mandates are won in Nigeria
Introductions open doors; process decides who walks through
Nigerian consulting begins with relationship capital. Someone who trusts your work — a former colleague now at a bank, a client who moved companies, a contact from an alumni network — mentions your firm at the right moment, and an enquiry arrives on WhatsApp or by phone. But the introduction only opens the door. Corporates and multinationals then route the pursuit through vendor registration, formal proposals and procurement committees; public-sector and agency work adds its own documentation layers. Firms lose mandates less often to rivals than to their own untracked process: a registration that stalled, a proposal never nudged, a committee date missed.
The fee is a second campaign
Winning the engagement letter starts the commercial work rather than ending it. Payment cycles stretch, approvals migrate between departments, and the firm that invoices precisely and follows up on a disciplined, professional schedule gets paid quarters ahead of the one that waits politely.