Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Enviva Partners LP is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Enviva Partners LP
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Enviva Partners LP can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Enviva Partners LP, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Enviva Partners LP 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 Enviva Partners LP can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Enviva Partners LP
2. Improving business portfolio management of Enviva Partners LP
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Enviva Partners LP
Strengths of Enviva Partners LP | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Enviva Partners LP are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Enviva Partners LP has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Enviva Partners LP staying ahead in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures
– Enviva Partners LP is one of the leading players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Enviva Partners LP in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– Enviva Partners LP has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Enviva Partners LP to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Enviva Partners LP to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Enviva Partners LP in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Enviva Partners LP has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Enviva Partners LP to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Enviva Partners LP is present in almost all the verticals within the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. This has provided Enviva Partners LP 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.
High brand equity
– Enviva Partners LP has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Enviva Partners LP to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Enviva Partners LP digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Enviva Partners LP 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Enviva Partners LP has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Enviva Partners LP have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Enviva Partners LP in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Enviva Partners LP is one of the leading players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Enviva Partners LP is one of the most innovative firm in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– Enviva Partners LP is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Enviva Partners LP | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Enviva Partners LP are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Enviva Partners LP is one of the leading players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in last five years.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Enviva Partners LP, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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 Enviva Partners LP strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Enviva Partners LP 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, Enviva Partners LP 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Enviva Partners LP needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Enviva Partners LP can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Enviva Partners LP is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Enviva Partners LP is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Enviva Partners LP to provide better information regarding Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Enviva Partners LP 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Enviva Partners LP has some of the most successful models in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Enviva Partners LP should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Enviva Partners LP is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, but Enviva Partners LP needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Enviva Partners LP to focus more on services in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Enviva Partners LP 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Enviva Partners LP 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry using digital technology.
Enviva Partners LP Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Enviva Partners LP are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Enviva Partners LP can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Enviva Partners LP has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Enviva Partners LP to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Enviva Partners LP to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Enviva Partners LP can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Enviva Partners LP can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Enviva Partners LP 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. Enviva Partners LP 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
– Enviva Partners LP can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Enviva Partners LP 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Enviva Partners LP 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.
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. Enviva Partners LP can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Enviva Partners LP 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 Enviva Partners LP 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 Enviva Partners LP 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 Enviva Partners LP to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Enviva Partners LP 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Enviva Partners LP can develop new processes and procedures in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Threats Enviva Partners LP External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Enviva Partners LP are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Enviva Partners LP is facing in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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, Enviva Partners LP may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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 Enviva Partners LP.
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.
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. Enviva Partners LP 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.
Increasing wage structure of Enviva Partners LP
– 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 Enviva Partners LP.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Enviva Partners LP 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Enviva Partners LP 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Enviva Partners LP has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Enviva Partners LP needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
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 Enviva Partners LP in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Enviva Partners LP in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. The Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry are lowering. It can presents Enviva Partners LP with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector.
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 Enviva Partners LP Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Enviva Partners LP 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 Enviva Partners LP 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 Enviva Partners LP 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 Enviva Partners LP 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 Enviva Partners LP needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
