Blue Sphere (BLSP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Electric Utilities
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Blue Sphere (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Blue Sphere is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Blue Sphere can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Blue Sphere, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Blue Sphere 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 Blue Sphere can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Blue Sphere
2. Improving business portfolio management of Blue Sphere
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Electric Utilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Blue Sphere
Strengths of Blue Sphere | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Blue Sphere are -
High brand equity
– Blue Sphere has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Blue Sphere to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Blue Sphere 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 Blue Sphere is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Blue Sphere emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Blue Sphere 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Blue Sphere 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 Blue Sphere have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Blue Sphere is present in almost all the verticals within the Electric Utilities industry. This has provided Blue Sphere 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Blue Sphere has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Blue Sphere 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.
Organizational Resilience of Blue Sphere
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Blue Sphere does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Blue Sphere 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Blue Sphere is one of the most innovative firm in Electric Utilities sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Electric Utilities industry
– Blue Sphere is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Blue Sphere is one of the leading players in the Electric Utilities industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Blue Sphere in Electric Utilities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Blue Sphere | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Blue Sphere are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Blue Sphere, 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Blue Sphere strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Blue Sphere 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 Blue Sphere needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Electric Utilities industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Blue Sphere can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Blue Sphere is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Blue Sphere needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Blue Sphere 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Blue Sphere has some of the most successful models in the Electric Utilities industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Blue Sphere should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on Blue Sphere ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Blue Sphere 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 Blue Sphere has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Blue Sphere has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Electric Utilities industry over the last five years. Blue Sphere even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Lack of clear differentiation of Blue Sphere products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Blue Sphere needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring in Electric Utilities industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Blue Sphere 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Blue Sphere 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.
Blue Sphere Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Blue Sphere are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Blue Sphere can develop new processes and procedures in Electric Utilities 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.
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 Blue Sphere 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Blue Sphere has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Electric Utilities industry. This can help Blue Sphere to build a more holistic ecosystem for Blue Sphere products in the Electric Utilities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Blue Sphere 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 Blue Sphere 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. Blue Sphere can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Electric Utilities industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Blue Sphere 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. Blue Sphere 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Blue Sphere can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Electric Utilities sector. 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Blue Sphere 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 Blue Sphere to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Blue Sphere 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
– Blue Sphere 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 Blue Sphere to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Blue Sphere to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Blue Sphere 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.
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 Blue Sphere in the Electric Utilities industry. Now Blue Sphere 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 Blue Sphere can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Blue Sphere External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Blue Sphere are -
Environmental challenges
– Blue Sphere 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. Blue Sphere can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Electric Utilities industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Blue Sphere high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
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.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Blue Sphere will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
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.
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. Blue Sphere 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
– Blue Sphere 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Blue Sphere 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.
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 Blue Sphere business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Electric Utilities industry are lowering. It can presents Blue Sphere with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Electric Utilities sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Blue Sphere 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 Blue Sphere prominent markets.
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. Blue Sphere needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Electric Utilities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Blue Sphere has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Electric Utilities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Blue Sphere needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Electric Utilities 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Blue Sphere Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Blue Sphere 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 Blue Sphere 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 Blue Sphere 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 Blue Sphere 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 Blue Sphere needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
