Just Energy Group (JE) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Electric Utilities
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Just Energy Group (Canada)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Just Energy Group is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Just Energy Group
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Just Energy Group can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Just Energy Group, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Just Energy Group 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 Just Energy Group can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Just Energy Group
2. Improving business portfolio management of Just Energy Group
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Canada
4. Making a Electric Utilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Just Energy Group
Strengths of Just Energy Group | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Just Energy Group are -
Organizational Resilience of Just Energy Group
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Just Energy Group does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Just Energy Group 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.
Digital Transformation in Electric Utilities industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Just Energy Group digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Just Energy Group 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Electric Utilities industry
– Just Energy Group is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High brand equity
– Just Energy Group has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Just Energy Group to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Just Energy Group in the Utilities sector have low bargaining power. Just Energy Group has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Just Energy Group to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Just Energy Group is present in almost all the verticals within the Electric Utilities industry. This has provided Just Energy Group 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Just Energy Group 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
– Just Energy Group is one of the most innovative firm in Electric Utilities sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Electric Utilities industry
– Just Energy Group has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Just Energy Group to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Electric Utilities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Just Energy Group to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Just Energy Group in Electric Utilities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Just Energy Group 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 Just Energy Group have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Just Energy Group | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Just Energy Group are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Electric Utilities industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Canada, Just Energy Group 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Just Energy Group, 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, Just Energy Group 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.
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 Just Energy Group supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Just Energy Group is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Just Energy Group vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Just Energy Group 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Just Energy Group is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Just Energy Group to provide better information regarding Electric Utilities products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Just Energy Group 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 Just Energy Group lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Just Energy Group 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Just Energy Group 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 Just Energy Group can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Just Energy Group is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Canada, Just Energy Group needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Just Energy Group is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Electric Utilities industry, but Just Energy Group needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Just Energy Group to focus more on services in the Electric Utilities industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Just Energy Group Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Just Energy Group are -
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. Just Energy Group 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. Just Energy Group 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.
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 Just Energy Group 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Just Energy Group to increase its market reach. Just Energy Group 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.
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. Just Energy Group can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Just Energy Group 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Just Energy Group 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Just Energy Group 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Just Energy Group 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Just Energy Group 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Just Energy Group can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Just Energy Group has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Electric Utilities industry. This can help Just Energy Group to build a more holistic ecosystem for Just Energy Group products in the Electric Utilities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Just Energy Group 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Just Energy Group 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 Just Energy Group to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Just Energy Group External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Just Energy Group are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Just Energy Group has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Electric Utilities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Just Energy Group 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Just Energy Group 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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Just Energy Group 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Just Energy Group 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Electric Utilities industry are lowering. It can presents Just Energy Group with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Electric Utilities sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Just Energy Group 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Just Energy Group is facing in Electric Utilities sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Just Energy Group 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 Just Energy Group prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Just Energy Group 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. Just Energy Group can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Just Energy Group 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 Just Energy Group business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Just Energy Group Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Just Energy Group 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 Just Energy Group 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 Just Energy Group 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 Just Energy Group 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 Just Energy Group needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.