Kundayi E.

Mahembe

Vincent Pol University

International Business Studies

Index no 15332
3rd Year 5th semester
 Unilever

Unilever plc is a British multinational consumer goods company. Its headquarters is in

London, United Kingdom. Unilever produce a variety of products such as different types of
food, condiments, ice cream, wellbeing vitamins, minerals and supplements, tea, coffee,
breakfast cereals, cleaning agents, water and air purifiers, pet food, toothpaste, beauty
products, and personal care. Unilever is the largest producer of soap in the world. Unilever's
products are available in around 190 countries and they owns over 400 brands, with a
turnover in 2020 of 51 billion euros.

The approach to value creation of Unilever

Value creation is the goal of every successful business entity, by creating value for
customers helps an organization sell its products and services with ease. In the same vein,
creating value for shareholders in the form of an increase in dividends and stock prices
ensures the availability of investment capital to fund future operations.

From a business perspective, value is created when a company earns a return on capital
revenue that exceeds initial capital.

Unilever like another company does aim to create value for its stakeholders. They have six
groups of stakeholders, and they see all of its stakeholders as important as the next and aim
to do business that creates value for them all. The stakeholders are the shareholders, the
consumers, the planet and society, the people, supplier and business partners and the
costumer.

The People

Unilever believes that when they take care of people, people will take care of the business.
They’re aim is for people to be the best they can be at Unilever; rewarding them fairly for
the work they do, whilst helping them to find their purpose.

Consumer

They aim to give they’re consumers superior-quality products, from innovative brands with
purpose, which take action on the issues that matter. They achieve this by listening to
consumers and acting fast.
They encourage its consumers to let them know what they think of our products that is the
good and the bad and how they’d like things to change and where they can make a
difference for them.

By listening to the ‘digital voice of the consumer’, Unilever constantly reviewing the
feedback people kindly provide on its brands. They do this, for example, through our
consumer engagement centres, product ratings and reviews on social media and then we
act fast.

Customer

Unilever has partnered with global ecommerce marketplaces through to small family-owned
stores, to grow its business and empower small business.

Suppliers and business partners

They work with thousands of suppliers to drive innovation across our products and support
mutual and sustainable growth.

Planet & society

Unilever aims to improve the health of the planet while contributing to a more socially
inclusive world. They want to achieve that by reducing its carbon footprint and also
encourage recycling of waste.

Shareholders

They aim to deliver consistent, competitive, profitable and responsible growth.

Profile the types of strategies used by Unileveler

A century ago no one would have predicted that a company founded by a margarine owner
and a soap maker would years later become one of the biggest conglomerates in the world.
As of 2020, it has a turnover of around €50 billion and has approximately 155,000
employees worldwide. Apart from financially doing well, it has also progressed towards
achieving sustainable development goals. Unilever is one of the few companies which have
achieved gender equality in the workplace.
One of the best business strategies used by Unilever is that it integrates its global strategies
with the
he local community to attract consumers who are attracted to the products that are
famous worldwide; however, it can hold on to its local essence. For example, Hindustan
Unilever, a subsidiary of Unilever in India, has established itself as one of the mos
most loved
brands by the Indian audience. For decades it has been one of the top five most valuable
companies in India. The reason for the success of HUL in the Indian market is its association
with middle-class
class values and old
old-fashioned essence. Although gh it has been changing with
time simultaneously, HUL’s philosophy has remained rooted in the purpose and values of
the consumers.

While promoting these brands, Unilever also focuses on achieving the upper hand in
communication to the audience without compromising these brands’ delivery. Therefore,
due to such creative methods, Unilever’s brands, despite being one of the oldest, have
continued to gain consumers’ confidence.

Unilever worked on the longer

longer-term
term implications of global trends for its business. Thus, the
adoption of the Sustainable Living Plan has been a game
game-changer.
changer. It understood the
importance of Sustainability and accepted it as a cultural transformation journey by
integrating the USLP targets into its core working practices and procedures.

In 2010, the organization had set a goal to have a 50/50 split in the employment and added
a women-leadership
leadership program. It collected, reviewed, and analyzed the data for the past 10
10-
years and used it to battle gender st
stereotypes every month.

Unilever focuses on eliminating inequality at the global level by removing stereotypes in its
advertising and showing how fathers or husbands could contribute to society
They building a customer-centric business strategy by having a competitive advantage due
to its continuously enhancing values amongst consumers globally. Furthermore, it possesses
a diversified portfolio of the top brands, thus achieving a unique position and innovating
with the consumers’ preferences globally.
It has also taken up initiatives in its Research and Development, which are heavily funded to
align with changing consumer needs. It has its R&D operations in China, India, UK, the US,
and the Netherlands. Due to its manufacturing facilities in around 270 locations globally,
Unilever has been able to cut costs and achieve expertise in its distribution channels.

Unilever has been able to establish itself as the most significant FMCG due to its direct-to-
consumer business model, i.e. by extensively understanding the needs of the consumers.
Unilever also started its marketing campaign by forming a relationship between the
consumer and the brand.

It’s not easy to be a market leader for a century and that too by winning the hearts of its
consumers. With its dedicated sustainable yet customer-centric business strategy, Unilever
would continue to do so.

Describe the characteristics of the organizational structure of Unilever

Unilever has a product type divisional organizational structure. The organization is divided
into components based on their product focus. For example, the company has a division for
personal care products and another division for home care products. The following are the
main characteristics of Unilever’s organizational structure:

1. Product type divisions (most significant feature)

2. Corporate executive teams
3. Geographic divisions (least significant feature)

Product Type Divisions

A product type division functions as a unit that enables Unilever to manage the
development, manufacturing, distribution and sale of its consumer goods. For example,
corporate managers use this feature of the organizational structure to match markets needs
with appropriate products.

An advantage of this structural characteristic is its facilitation of the company’s efforts to

apply product differentiation, which is Unilever’s generic strategy for competitive
advantage. This corporate structure is beneficial, especially because the company already
has a diverse portfolio of products. Unilever maintains the following product type divisions
in its organizational structure:

1. Personal Care
2. Foods
3. Home Care
4. Refreshment
Corporate Executive Teams.

Corporate teams are a secondary characteristic of Unilever’s organizational structure. This

structural feature is based on business functions. For example, Unilever has a team for
finance and another team for marketing communications. These teams make up the
Unilever Leadership Executive (ULE) group. The following are a few of the corporate
executive teams in Unilever’s organizational structure:

1. Chief Executive
2. Human Resources
3. Research & Development
4. Supply Chain
5. Finance
6. Legal
7. Foods
8. Marketing & Communications

Geographic Divisions.

Geographic divisions are a minor feature of Unilever’s organizational structure. The

company uses this structural characteristic to support regional strategies. For example,
Unilever’s marketing strategies for Europe are different from strategies applied for Asian
consumer goods markets. Also, this corporate structure feature is used to analyze the
company’s financial performance. The following geographic divisions are maintained in
Unilever’s organizational structure:

1. Asia/AMET/RUB (Africa, Middle East, Turkey; Russia, Ukraine, Belarus)

2. The Americas
3. Europe

Unilever’s Corporate Structure – Implications, Advantages & Disadvantages

An advantage of Unilever’s organizational structure is its support for product development

and innovation. For example, each product type division has its semi-autonomous
capabilities to develop products that directly suit the needs in consumer goods market
segments. This corporate structure is also advantageous because it enables Unilever to
differentiate its products despite the large size of its global operations.

A disadvantage of Unilever’s organizational structure is its minimal support for regional

strategic implementation. Even though geographic divisions are one of its structural
features, the company focuses more on product type divisions. As a result, there is limited
support for market-specific or regional strategic reforms. Thus, to improve this
organizational structure, a recommendation is that Unilever must increase its emphasis on
geographic divisions to empower regional managerial teams. Such structural change
improves strategic effectiveness in regional consumer goods markets.

Discuss the systems used to coordinate international activities at Unilever

As one of the strong and healthy companies in the world with many successful brands,
Unilever recognized that its product is commonly used for all people worldwide.

Unilever’s Business Model

Unilever’s business model begins with consumer insight that informs brand innovation, and
cover the following things:

1. Manufacturing:

Unilever has the world’s No.1 supply chain according to Gartner. 306 factories and have
invested heavily in efficiency and eco-production.

2. Logistics:

Unilever centralizing its operations with a network of global Ultra Logistic control towers to
improve customer service, cut costs and reduce CO2 emissions. We increasingly use hybrid
vehicles and rail rather than road.

3. Marketing

Unilever’s multiple platforms to achieve cut-through in a highly fragmented media.

Effective digital marketing is essential and influences shopping at all stages of the decision-
making process and through all channels.

4. Sales

Unilever work closely with retailers to win in the market place, making sure our brands are
always available and properly displayed, in all channels from supermarkets to e-commerce.

5. Consumer insight

Unilever not only need insight into trends, but also the ability to predict them in order to
maintain our competitive advantage.

6. Collaboration
 Unilever work with governments, NGOs and other stakeholders to drive change that’s good
for society and good for business, and we work with partners in our supply chain, to create
innovations in products and packaging.

7. Innovation

Unilever research and development mission is to build brands through benefit led
innovation unlocked by science and technology.

Unilever’s Organizational Culture

The progress of this company is linked to its organizational culture and the kinds of activities
and policies leaders have implemented over time. Organizational culture, leadership and the
human resources of a firm are all interrelated. Unilever is an integrated global firm. Any
change in one area leads to changes or developments in other areas.

The characteristics of these components also affect each other and the rest of the
organization of Unilever. The company is successful because of the overall effectiveness of
its leaders in supporting improvements in the organizational culture. Unilever’s corporate
culture contributes to improvements in other areas, such as production and human
resources.

Unilever has an organizational culture of performance, which emphasizes the significance of

employee output. This corporate culture also points to the importance of criteria or
measures used to determine required output and adequacy of output. Unilever’s
organizational culture of performance has the following characteristics:

a. Focus on performance – individual performance and organizational performance

b. Focus on quality – quality of output in all areas
c. Efficiency – efficient work through technology and other tools

Unilever’s organizational culture is focused on performance and quality. This corporate

culture is observable in the long history of the company. The business has grown from a
small firm to a global powerhouse. Such success is significantly based on the ability of
Unilever’s organizational culture to in still high performance and quality in employees’ work
ethic to maximize business output. For example, because of high quality, the company’s
consumer goods remain competitive in the global market despite tough competition. This
emphasis on quality is also a reflection of the emphasis on product effectiveness in the
firm’s mission statement. Unilever has also mastered efficiency through technology and
innovation in its internal business processes, including human resource development.

Leadership’s Role in Unilever’s Organizational Culture

Unilever’s success is partly based on the ability of leaders to support a culture of
performance and quality. Market-based management uses market data to make changes in
management tactics. On the other hand, results-based management focuses on the
achievement of desired outcomes. These tactics facilitate human resource productivity and
organizational performance in the consumer goods business. Thus, Unilever’s leadership
and managerial approaches are a factor that maintains the company’s organizational
culture.

Unilever’s leadership-based approaches support the integrity of corporate culture

implementation, especially in mergers and acquisitions. Integrity is important in mergers
and acquisitions, where human resource integration is needed for successful organizational
merging. For example, Unilever applies results-based management to implement its
organizational culture throughout the newly merged organization. In this way, the
company’s leadership supports integrity for the continuity of the organizational culture of
performance and quality even after mergers and acquisitions.

Culture, Leadership, and Human Resource Structures and Practices

Leadership reinforces the development of the organizational culture of Unilever. This

organizational culture affects human resource structures and practices. Unilever reinforces
the corporate culture of performance and quality through leaders’ regular monitoring and
evaluations, as well as commitment and support.

For example, the results of evaluations are used for guiding HR practices that reinforce
Unilever’s organizational culture of performance and quality. Employees’ needs are
identified and integrated in HR program enhancements. Through this cultural
reinforcement, the company instils quality as a defining factor in employees’ performance
and productivity.

Evaluation and Recommendations

Unilever’s culture is a culture of performance. The different components of the business are
focused on improving financial performance and quality of products. Through effective
leadership, individual performance is supported. Through collaborative efforts of leaders
from different departments, the firm also ensures an organizational culture of performance.
Thus, this culture of performance is manifested at the individual and organizational levels in
Unilever’s consumer goods business.

Unilever’s organizational culture has room for further improvement. A recommendation is

to improve policies to accommodate diversity. Higher diversity is inevitable in global
business, and the company must take advantage of it. Also, Unilever can implement
improvements in information technologies. For example, these technologies can support
workers in all areas through advanced tools for market research, customer relations and
internal communications. These improvements can help strengthen the firm’s
organizational culture of performance.

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