Clearway Energy C (CWEN) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / 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 – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc

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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.

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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

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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 -

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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Clearway Energy C 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 Clearway Energy C have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Clearway Energy C has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Clearway Energy C 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.

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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Clearway Energy C has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Clearway Energy C 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.

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.

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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Clearway Energy C 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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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 -

Skills based hiring in Electric Utilities industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Clearway Energy C 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 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.

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.

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.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Clearway Energy C is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Electric Utilities industry, but Clearway Energy C needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Clearway Energy C to focus more on services in the Electric Utilities industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

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.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Clearway Energy C, in the dynamic environment of Electric Utilities industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Clearway Energy C has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Clearway Energy C 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. Clearway Energy C should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Clearway Energy C, 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.

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.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Electric Utilities industry, Clearway Energy C needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.

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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 -

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.

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.

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.

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. Clearway Energy C 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 Electric Utilities industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Clearway Energy C 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. Clearway Energy C 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. Clearway Energy C can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Clearway Energy C can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Clearway Energy C operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Electric Utilities sector.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Clearway Energy C 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 Clearway Energy C to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Clearway Energy C to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

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.

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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 -

Increasing wage structure of Clearway Energy C

– 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 Clearway Energy C.

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.

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.

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.

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. Clearway Energy C can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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 Clearway Energy C in the Electric Utilities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Clearway Energy C 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 Electric Utilities industry and other sectors.

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.

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.

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.

Environmental challenges

– Clearway Energy C 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. Clearway Energy C can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Electric Utilities 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.

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.

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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.

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