Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Canvest Environmental Protection is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Canvest Environmental Protection
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Canvest Environmental Protection can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Canvest Environmental Protection, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Canvest Environmental Protection 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 Canvest Environmental Protection can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Canvest Environmental Protection
2. Improving business portfolio management of Canvest Environmental Protection
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Electric Utilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Canvest Environmental Protection
Strengths of Canvest Environmental Protection | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Canvest Environmental Protection are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Canvest Environmental Protection 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 Canvest Environmental Protection digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Canvest Environmental Protection 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
– Canvest Environmental Protection 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 Canvest Environmental Protection have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Canvest Environmental Protection 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.
Analytics focus
– Canvest Environmental Protection 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 Hong Kong 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Canvest Environmental Protection is present in almost all the verticals within the Electric Utilities industry. This has provided Canvest Environmental Protection 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.
Training and development
– Canvest Environmental Protection has one of the best training and development program in Utilities industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Canvest Environmental Protection in the Utilities sector have low bargaining power. Canvest Environmental Protection has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Canvest Environmental Protection to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Canvest Environmental Protection has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Canvest Environmental Protection to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Canvest Environmental Protection comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Electric Utilities industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Canvest Environmental Protection is one of the leading players in the Electric Utilities industry in Hong Kong. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Hong Kong. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Canvest Environmental Protection has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Canvest Environmental Protection 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 Canvest Environmental Protection | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Canvest Environmental Protection are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Canvest Environmental Protection has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Electric Utilities industry over the last five years. Canvest Environmental Protection 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Canvest Environmental Protection needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Canvest Environmental Protection 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 Canvest Environmental Protection can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Canvest Environmental Protection is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Canvest Environmental Protection, in the dynamic environment of Electric Utilities industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Canvest Environmental Protection has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Canvest Environmental Protection is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Electric Utilities industry, but Canvest Environmental Protection needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Canvest Environmental Protection 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 Hong Kong, Canvest Environmental Protection 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 Canvest Environmental Protection, 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.
High dependence on Canvest Environmental Protection ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Canvest Environmental Protection still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Electric Utilities industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Canvest Environmental Protection has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ less understanding of Canvest Environmental Protection strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Canvest Environmental Protection 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.
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 Canvest Environmental Protection supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Canvest Environmental Protection is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Canvest Environmental Protection vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Electric Utilities industry, Canvest Environmental Protection 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.
Canvest Environmental Protection Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Canvest Environmental Protection are -
Buying journey improvements
– Canvest Environmental Protection 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.
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. Canvest Environmental Protection 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. Canvest Environmental Protection 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 Canvest Environmental Protection 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Canvest Environmental Protection 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Canvest Environmental Protection 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Canvest Environmental Protection is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Canvest Environmental Protection can utilize new technology in the field of Electric Utilities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Canvest Environmental Protection can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Canvest Environmental Protection to increase its market reach. Canvest Environmental Protection 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Canvest Environmental Protection 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Canvest Environmental Protection 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 Canvest Environmental Protection to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Canvest Environmental Protection 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Canvest Environmental Protection 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Canvest Environmental Protection has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Electric Utilities industry. This can help Canvest Environmental Protection to build a more holistic ecosystem for Canvest Environmental Protection products in the Electric Utilities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Canvest Environmental Protection External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Canvest Environmental Protection are -
Environmental challenges
– Canvest Environmental Protection 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. Canvest Environmental Protection can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Electric Utilities industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Canvest Environmental Protection is facing in Electric Utilities sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Electric Utilities industry are lowering. It can presents Canvest Environmental Protection with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Electric Utilities sector.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Canvest Environmental Protection.
Regulatory challenges
– Canvest Environmental Protection 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Canvest Environmental Protection 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.
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. Canvest Environmental Protection 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Canvest Environmental Protection has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Electric Utilities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Canvest Environmental Protection 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.
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. Canvest Environmental Protection needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Electric Utilities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Canvest Environmental Protection 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 Canvest Environmental Protection prominent markets.
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 Canvest Environmental Protection in the Electric Utilities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Canvest Environmental Protection Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Canvest Environmental Protection 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 Canvest Environmental Protection 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 Canvest Environmental Protection 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 Canvest Environmental Protection 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 Canvest Environmental Protection needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.