RNR Consulting conducted a thorough analysis of both the internal and the external environment in which CPP operates. RNR Consulting identified, evaluated, and ranked the strategic options available to CPP, and defined options tasks, subtasks and action-oriented steps for each subtask. The successful implementation of these options helped CPP achieve the desired goals as identified in the analysis of the strategic options process.

RNR Consulting initiated the analysis of the internal environment by conducting interviews and focus groups with stakeholders for a comprehensive evaluation of departmental processes. Further analysis of the organization was facilitated through the careful review of the CPP internal environment and defining the company’s strengths and weaknesses in terms of current utilization of people, processes, and technology. The analysis of the current organization included:

 Understanding the CPP mission and vision;
 Assessing the current organizational structure and administration;
 Reviewing and documenting the CPP history of strategic decisions;
 Defining bottlenecks, redundancies, and issues related to critical processes (customer billing, service request process, power load projection process);
 Analyzing the formal and informal effectiveness of communication channels within and between the CPP departments, and defining unnecessary and redundant flow of information within these channels;
 Outlining the current status of resource utilization to define areas where CPP has competitive advantages and where it should invest additional time and resources;
 Analyzing the CPP cultural intensity and integration – thus allowing us to define the degree to which employees accept the norms and values associated with CPP and to what extent they share the common culture within CPP;
 Analyzing and evaluating the CPP customer–related issues such as overall customer satisfaction, quality of customer service, problem resolution, and retention of customer base;
 Developing a financial statement ratio analysis and describing the financial health of CPP while highlighting the developing trends;
 Analyzing the CPP distribution rates;
 Analyzing the CPP environmental status;
 Evaluating the current Civil Services job descriptions and determining their relevancy to the actual job duties performed.

The scanning of the external environment enabled the project team to define opportunities and threats related to the electric power industry, competition, energy legislations, political environment and regulatory environment. The analysis of the external environment included:

 Documenting industry trends and evaluating possible competitors’ actions in the future;
 Comparing performance characteristics for functional areas between CPP and other electric utilities with comparable statistics to CPP in terms of capacity and population served;
 Analyzing the best practices within competing electric utilities;
 Reviewing and documenting the characteristics of the current power market in Northeast Ohio;
 Documenting industry considerations related to the potential for renewable energy development in the City of Cleveland, new utility interconnection polices, and transmission reliability/operating standards;
 Analyzing the political environment in Ohio and how it may affect CPP’s strategic direction;
 Determining how the attitudes of elected officials towards power issues could be used to generate the maximum political support.

RNR Consulting assessed the findings from the analyses of the internal environment and the external environment, and identified key issues and recommendations for CPP. RNR Consulting utilized the PEST, SWOT, Porter’s 5 Forces, 4P’s, and 3C’s analyses and identified a preliminary list of strategic options for CPP. A strategic options survey was developed and utilized to solicit feedback from the CPP Oversight and Executive Team. Based upon the survey results, RNR Consulting defined and prioritized the top 10 final strategic options. We also defined the goals, stakeholders, resources, and high-level action steps for each option and subtask necessary for success.