Strategy Formulation in Emerging Markets: Why the Frameworks We Import Do Not Always Apply

The management consulting industry was largely built on frameworks developed in mature Western markets. Porter’s Five Forces, BCG matrices, Ansoff growth grids. These are powerful analytical tools, but they were developed in environments characterised by relatively stable competitive dynamics, mature capital markets, strong regulatory frameworks, and consumer populations with established brand relationship histories. When those frameworks travel to West Africa, South Asia, or Latin America, they often arrive with assumptions baked in that simply do not hold.

The strategist working in an emerging market context needs to know which tools to use, which to adapt, and which to set aside entirely in favour of original thinking about the specific market in front of them.

What is different about emerging market strategy

In a mature market, competitive advantage is typically sustained by differentiation, cost leadership, or focus, and markets generally move in ways that are at least predictable in direction if not in magnitude. In an emerging market, several additional variables are in play simultaneously. Regulatory environments can shift rapidly and in ways that restructure entire industries overnight. Infrastructure constraints shape strategy in ways that established-market frameworks do not account for. The informal economy is not a marginal footnote but often the primary distribution channel for mass-market products.

Perhaps most significantly, consumer behaviour in an emerging market context is shaped by a different risk calculus. In markets where average incomes are lower and safety nets are thinner, consumers make brand choices under a different set of considerations than in markets where disposable income is higher and the cost of a poor brand decision is negligible.

What this means for strategy practice

It means that the most valuable strategic asset in an emerging market is not the ability to apply frameworks fluently but the ability to observe markets precisely. The strategist who can synthesise what they see in the Lagos market, in conversations with distributors, in the behaviour of consumers at the point of sale, into a coherent picture of competitive opportunity, is worth more than the strategist who arrives with a pre-built methodology and applies it regardless of local conditions.

The best strategy work in emerging markets is always original. It starts from the market as it is, not the market as the framework assumes it to be.