Clearway Energy C (CWEN) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Electric Utilities
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Clearway Energy C (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Clearway Energy C is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing,
increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Clearway Energy C
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Clearway Energy C can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Clearway Energy C, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Clearway Energy C 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 Clearway Energy C can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Clearway Energy C
2. Improving business portfolio management of Clearway Energy C
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 Clearway Energy C
Strengths of Clearway Energy C | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Clearway Energy C are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Electric Utilities industry
– Clearway Energy C has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Clearway Energy C to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Electric Utilities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Clearway Energy C to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Clearway Energy C 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 Clearway Energy C is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Clearway Energy C emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Clearway Energy C 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Clearway Energy C 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Clearway Energy C 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.
Organizational Resilience of Clearway Energy C
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Clearway Energy C does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Clearway Energy C in the Utilities sector have low bargaining power. Clearway Energy C has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Clearway Energy C to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Clearway Energy C is present in almost all the verticals within the Electric Utilities industry. This has provided Clearway Energy C 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Electric Utilities industry
– Clearway Energy C is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Clearway Energy C in Electric Utilities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Clearway Energy C 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 United States 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.
Training and development
– Clearway Energy C 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.
Weaknesses of Clearway Energy C | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Clearway Energy C are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Clearway Energy C needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Electric Utilities industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Clearway Energy C 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Clearway Energy C 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Clearway Energy C 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 dependence on Clearway Energy C ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Clearway Energy C 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 Clearway Energy C has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Clearway Energy C products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Clearway Energy C needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Clearway Energy C has high operating costs in the Electric Utilities industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Clearway Energy C lucrative customers.
Employees’ less understanding of Clearway Energy C strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Clearway Energy C 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Clearway Energy C 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Clearway Energy C 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Clearway Energy C is just above the Electric Utilities 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.
Clearway Energy C Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Clearway Energy C are -
Loyalty marketing
– Clearway Energy C 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Clearway Energy C 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Clearway Energy C 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Clearway Energy C 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Clearway Energy C 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 Clearway Energy C to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Clearway Energy C in the Electric Utilities industry. Now Clearway Energy C 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 Clearway Energy C can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Clearway Energy C can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Electric Utilities industry.
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 Clearway Energy C 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Clearway Energy C 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Clearway Energy C 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Clearway Energy C to increase its market reach. Clearway Energy C 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Clearway Energy C has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Electric Utilities industry. This can help Clearway Energy C to build a more holistic ecosystem for Clearway Energy C products in the Electric Utilities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Clearway Energy C External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Clearway Energy C are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Clearway Energy C 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Clearway Energy C is facing in Electric Utilities sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Clearway Energy C 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.
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. Clearway Energy C 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.
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. Clearway Energy C needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Electric Utilities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Clearway Energy C business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Clearway Energy C 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Electric Utilities industry are lowering. It can presents Clearway Energy C with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Electric Utilities sector.
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 Clearway Energy C.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Clearway Energy C 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Clearway Energy C 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Clearway Energy C 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 Clearway Energy C prominent markets.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Clearway Energy C Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Clearway Energy C 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 Clearway Energy C 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 Clearway Energy C 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 Clearway Energy C 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 Clearway Energy C needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.