Suez (SEVI) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Waste Management Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Suez (France)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Suez is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Suez can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Suez, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Suez 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 Suez can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Suez
2. Improving business portfolio management of Suez
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in France
4. Making a Waste Management Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Suez
Strengths of Suez | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Suez are -
Analytics focus
– Suez 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 Waste Management Services industry. The technology infrastructure of France 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.
Digital Transformation in Waste Management Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Suez digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Suez 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.
High brand equity
– Suez has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Suez to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Suez in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Suez has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Suez to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Suez
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Suez does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Suez has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Suez is present in almost all the verticals within the Waste Management Services industry. This has provided Suez 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 Waste Management Services industry
– Suez is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Suez has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Waste Management Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Suez have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Suez comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Waste Management Services 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Waste Management Services industry
– Suez has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Suez to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Waste Management Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Suez to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Suez has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Suez 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.
Weaknesses of Suez | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Suez are -
Employees’ less understanding of Suez strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Suez 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Suez is just above the Waste Management Services 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Suez 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of France, Suez needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Suez products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Suez needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Suez is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Waste Management Services industry, but Suez needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Suez to focus more on services in the Waste Management Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 Suez supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Suez is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Suez vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Suez is one of the leading players in the Waste Management Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Waste Management Services industry in last five years.
High dependence on Suez ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Suez still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Waste Management Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Suez has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Suez has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Waste Management Services industry over the last five years. Suez even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Suez is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Suez to provide better information regarding Waste Management Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Suez Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Suez are -
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 Suez 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Suez has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Waste Management Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Suez to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Suez to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Suez can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Suez 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Suez in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Waste Management Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Suez 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 Suez to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Waste Management Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Suez in the Waste Management Services industry. Now Suez can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Suez 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Waste Management Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Suez 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. Suez 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Suez has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Waste Management Services industry. This can help Suez to build a more holistic ecosystem for Suez products in the Waste Management Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Suez can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Waste Management Services 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Suez can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Suez operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Waste Management Services sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Suez is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Suez can utilize new technology in the field of Waste Management Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Suez External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Suez are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Suez is facing in Waste Management Services 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, Suez may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Waste Management Services sector.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Suez business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Suez 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. Suez can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Waste Management Services industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Suez 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 Waste Management Services industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Suez 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 Suez prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Suez has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Waste Management Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Suez needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Waste Management Services 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Suez 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 Waste Management Services industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Waste Management Services industry are lowering. It can presents Suez with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Waste Management Services sector.
Increasing wage structure of Suez
– 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 Suez.
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. Suez needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Waste Management Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Suez 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Suez Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Suez 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 Suez 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 Suez 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 Suez 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 Suez needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.