Renewi (RWI) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Waste Management Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Renewi (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Renewi is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Renewi can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Renewi, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Renewi 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 Renewi can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Renewi
2. Improving business portfolio management of Renewi
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Waste Management Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Renewi
Strengths of Renewi | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Renewi are -
Ability to lead change in Waste Management Services
– Renewi is one of the leading players in the Waste Management Services industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Waste Management Services industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Renewi in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Renewi is present in almost all the verticals within the Waste Management Services industry. This has provided Renewi a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Learning organization
- Renewi is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Renewi is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Renewi emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Waste Management Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Renewi digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Renewi 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Renewi has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Renewi staying ahead in the Waste Management Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Renewi has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Waste Management Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Renewi have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Renewi 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Renewi 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Renewi is one of the most innovative firm in Waste Management Services sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Renewi has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Renewi 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Waste Management Services industry
– Renewi has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Renewi to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Waste Management Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Renewi to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Renewi has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Renewi to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Renewi | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Renewi are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Renewi, in the dynamic environment of Waste Management Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Renewi has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Renewi 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 Waste Management Services industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Waste Management Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Renewi 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 Waste Management Services industry.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Renewi is just above the Waste Management Services industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Renewi needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ less understanding of Renewi strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Renewi 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Renewi needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Waste Management Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Renewi can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Renewi is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Renewi, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Waste Management Services industry. 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Renewi 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 dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Renewi supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Renewi is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Renewi vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Renewi is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Waste Management Services industry, but Renewi needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Renewi to focus more on services in the Waste Management Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Renewi Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Renewi are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Waste Management Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Renewi can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Waste Management Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Renewi in the Waste Management Services industry. Now Renewi can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– Renewi can develop new processes and procedures in Waste Management Services industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Renewi in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Waste Management Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Renewi 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 Renewi to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Renewi 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Renewi has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Waste Management Services industry. This can help Renewi to build a more holistic ecosystem for Renewi products in the Waste Management Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Renewi has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Waste Management Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Renewi to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Renewi to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Renewi 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Renewi to increase its market reach. Renewi will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Renewi to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Renewi can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Waste Management Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Renewi 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. Renewi 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.
Threats Renewi External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Renewi are -
Environmental challenges
– Renewi 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. Renewi can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Waste Management Services industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Renewi may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Waste Management Services sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Renewi can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate Renewi prominent markets.
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 Renewi.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Renewi has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Waste Management Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Renewi needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Waste Management Services sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Increasing wage structure of Renewi
– 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 Renewi.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Renewi 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 Waste Management Services industry and other sectors.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Renewi in Waste Management Services industry. The Waste Management Services 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Renewi 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 Waste Management Services industry.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Renewi business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Waste Management Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Renewi can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Renewi is facing in Waste Management Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Renewi Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Renewi 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 Renewi 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 Renewi 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 Renewi 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 Renewi needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
