SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for CELPA Pref (Brazil)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , CELPA Pref is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that CELPA Pref can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the CELPA Pref, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which CELPA Pref 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 CELPA Pref can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of CELPA Pref
2. Improving business portfolio management of CELPA Pref
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Brazil
4. Making a Electric Utilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of CELPA Pref
Strengths of CELPA Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of CELPA Pref are -
Digital Transformation in Electric Utilities industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For CELPA Pref digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. CELPA Pref 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.
Learning organization
- CELPA Pref 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 CELPA Pref is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at CELPA Pref emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– CELPA Pref has one of the best training and development program in Utilities industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Analytics focus
– CELPA Pref 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 Electric Utilities industry. The technology infrastructure of Brazil is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Electric Utilities industry
– CELPA Pref has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled CELPA Pref to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Electric Utilities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped CELPA Pref to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– CELPA Pref has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. CELPA Pref 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
– CELPA Pref has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Electric Utilities industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of CELPA Pref have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of CELPA Pref in Electric Utilities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of CELPA Pref comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Electric Utilities industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Diverse revenue streams
– CELPA Pref is present in almost all the verticals within the Electric Utilities industry. This has provided CELPA Pref 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.
Innovation driven organization
– CELPA Pref is one of the most innovative firm in Electric Utilities sector.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– CELPA Pref has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – CELPA Pref staying ahead in the Electric Utilities industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of CELPA Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of CELPA Pref are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of CELPA Pref, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Electric Utilities 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, CELPA Pref 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 Electric Utilities industry using digital technology.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of CELPA Pref is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Electric Utilities industry, but CELPA Pref needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help CELPA Pref to focus more on services in the Electric Utilities industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 CELPA Pref supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, CELPA Pref is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left CELPA Pref vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring in Electric Utilities industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at CELPA Pref has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As CELPA Pref is one of the leading players in the Electric Utilities industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Electric Utilities industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Electric Utilities industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Brazil, CELPA Pref 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 Electric Utilities industry.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at CELPA Pref, in the dynamic environment of Electric Utilities industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. CELPA Pref has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on CELPA Pref ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of CELPA Pref still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Electric Utilities industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though CELPA Pref has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, CELPA Pref is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help CELPA Pref to provide better information regarding Electric Utilities products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ less understanding of CELPA Pref strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of CELPA Pref 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.
CELPA Pref Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of CELPA Pref are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, CELPA Pref is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. CELPA Pref can utilize new technology in the field of Electric Utilities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Electric Utilities industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. CELPA Pref can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, CELPA Pref can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that CELPA Pref operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Electric Utilities sector.
Buying journey improvements
– CELPA Pref can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Electric Utilities industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– CELPA Pref has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Electric Utilities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled CELPA Pref to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help CELPA Pref to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, CELPA Pref can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help CELPA Pref to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for CELPA Pref 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 CELPA Pref to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– CELPA Pref 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of CELPA Pref has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Electric Utilities industry. This can help CELPA Pref to build a more holistic ecosystem for CELPA Pref products in the Electric Utilities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help CELPA Pref to increase its market reach. CELPA Pref 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for CELPA Pref in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Electric Utilities industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 CELPA Pref 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Electric Utilities industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for CELPA Pref in the Electric Utilities industry. Now CELPA Pref can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats CELPA Pref External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of CELPA Pref are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that CELPA Pref is facing in Electric Utilities sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 CELPA Pref in the Electric Utilities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 CELPA Pref business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. CELPA Pref needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Electric Utilities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for CELPA Pref in Electric Utilities industry. The Electric Utilities 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Electric Utilities industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. CELPA Pref can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– CELPA Pref needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Electric Utilities industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– CELPA Pref 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. CELPA Pref can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Electric Utilities industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, CELPA Pref may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Electric Utilities sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, CELPA Pref 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 CELPA Pref prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– CELPA Pref 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 Electric Utilities industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Electric Utilities industry are lowering. It can presents CELPA Pref with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Electric Utilities sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of CELPA Pref Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at CELPA Pref 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 CELPA Pref 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 CELPA Pref 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 CELPA Pref 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 CELPA Pref needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
