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Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution

Case Study Description of Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand


ONergy, a for-profit social enterprise in the renewable-energy-based products industry is poised to scale up its operations - namely, providing electricity to the underserved, bottom-of-pyramid market in India. Creating a brand in this market has proved difficult, as competition comprises many large and small players. However, given the government's support of renewable-energy-based products, the company expects substantial and continuous growth and aims to carve out a prominent position in this up-and-coming market. ONergy views investment in brand building as a way to ensure better acceptance by consumers and it is exploring innovative branding strategies that may be adopted by start-up social enterprises to create unique brands in a strategically profitable way. The key question now facing ONergy's founder is how to maintain brand-building momentum and take the brand to the next level.

Authors :: Banerjee Saikat, Amit Aneja

Topics :: Sales & Marketing

Tags :: Marketing, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis

Swot Analysis of "Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand" written by Banerjee Saikat, Amit Aneja includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Onergy Brand facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing and Sales & Marketing.


Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Onergy Brand, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Onergy Brand operates in.

According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.




SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix


SWOT analysis of Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Onergy Brand
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Sales & Marketing field.
4. Making a Sales & Marketing topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Onergy Brand




Strengths Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Onergy Brand in Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand Harvard Business Review case study are -

Training and development

– Onergy Brand has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Onergy Brand is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Onergy Brand in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Onergy Brand has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Onergy Brand are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Onergy Brand in the sector have low bargaining power. Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Onergy Brand to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field

– Onergy Brand is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Onergy Brand in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Analytics focus

– Onergy Brand is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Banerjee Saikat, Amit Aneja can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.

Innovation driven organization

– Onergy Brand is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.

Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Onergy Brand digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Onergy Brand has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Onergy Brand has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Onergy Brand has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Onergy Brand has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.






Weaknesses Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand are -

Aligning sales with marketing

– It come across in the case study Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Onergy Brand is planning to shift buying processes online.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Onergy Brand has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.

High dependence on star products

– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Onergy Brand has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

High bargaining power of channel partners

– Because of the regulatory requirements, Banerjee Saikat, Amit Aneja suggests that, Onergy Brand is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.

Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy

– From the instances in the HBR case study Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand, it seems that the employees of Onergy Brand don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Onergy Brand has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Need for greater diversity

– Onergy Brand has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Onergy Brand 's lucrative customers.

No frontier risks strategy

– After analyzing the HBR case study Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Sales & Marketing strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Onergy Brand, firm in the HBR case study Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Onergy Brand has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.




Opportunities Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand are -

Manufacturing automation

– Onergy Brand can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Sales & Marketing segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Sales & Marketing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Onergy Brand can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– Consumer behavior has changed in the Sales & Marketing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Onergy Brand can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Onergy Brand can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Onergy Brand to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Onergy Brand can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Onergy Brand to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Onergy Brand to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Identify volunteer opportunities

– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Onergy Brand can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Loyalty marketing

– Onergy Brand has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.

Buying journey improvements

– Onergy Brand can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Onergy Brand in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Sales & Marketing segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Onergy Brand in the consumer business. Now Onergy Brand can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Onergy Brand can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Onergy Brand can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.




Threats Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand are -

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Onergy Brand is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Environmental challenges

– Onergy Brand needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Onergy Brand can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.

Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc

– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.

Aging population

– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.

New competition

– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Onergy Brand in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Capital market disruption

– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Onergy Brand.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Onergy Brand demand

– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.

Increasing wage structure of Onergy Brand

– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Onergy Brand.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Onergy Brand in the Sales & Marketing industry. The Sales & Marketing industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.

High level of anxiety and lack of motivation

– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Onergy Brand needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Sales & Marketing field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Onergy Brand can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Onergy Brand can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Onergy Brand with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand Template, Example


Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants. We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –

First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.

Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.

Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Onergy: Developing a Social Entrepreneurship Start-up Brand is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Onergy Brand needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



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