GROUP ASSIGNMENT

TECHNOLOGY PARK MALAYSIA

BM007-3-1-ITM
UC1F1404

Student Name

TP Number

MIN NAING SOE

TP035323

ZAW MIN AUNG

TP035206

DATE OF SUBMISSION:

4th, July, 2014

Number of Words

1478words

Analysis on Unilever
Introduction
Unilever is one of the oldest multinational consumer goods company, one of the
worlds leading fast-moving consumer goods company with products sold in over 190 countries,
established in 1930 by merging the British, Lever Brother and the Dutch Margarine Unie. Now,
Unilever PLC is in London, UK and Unilever N.V in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Unilever N.V and
Unilever PLC operate together as Unilever group. Both of the companies are under the same
board of directors. Unilever produces Food and Beverage, and Home and Personal Care. Some
of their products are Knorr, Breyers and Magnum, Lipton, Omo (detergent), and etc .With more
than 400 brands focused on health and wellbeing, Unilevers portfolio ranges from nutritionally
balanced foods to indulgent ice creams, affordable soaps, luxurious shampoos and everyday
household care products. Every day, 2 billions of people are using their products to look better,
feel better and get better more out of life. As it is very difficult to get vital information about
Unilevers managerial strategies, most of the information here are collected from the internet
websites and encyclopedia. This report takes a look at the Unilevers business environments.

Technology Environment
In the 1930, Unilever continue to expand business to be more successful in the 1950
with new technology being invented to be more productive and enhance quality products for
consumer, and boom competitors by improving their products using new inventions. Unilever
did not delay at their effort in research and development (R&D).Unilever is spending on IT to
improve their business especially in e-business, since 2000. So as to improve communication of
brands and market online, and to ease transaction along the chain. Today, Unilever is minimizing
the cost by using efficiencies of IT at global level. Additionally, Unilever Technology Venture
collaborates with Unilever R&D group to assist Unilever meet the desires of the consumers.
Their area of concerns are advanced bioscience, materials science, genomics, and
nanotechnology. Unilever installed pallet live storage system with Bitto Storage System Ltd, in
2003. It was to store their frozen products. Carton live storage system, pallet racking and live
storage system, boltless shelving, plastic bins and containers, wide span and heavy load
shelving, cantilever racking, and multi-tier shelving systems are of the facilities.
2

Legal- Political Environment

For Legal-Political Environment, Unilever set a standard to tackle political issues as
a matter of their policy. Unilever has its tactics of handling political issues. In 1960, many
countries nationalized foreign companies, and Unilever was also affected. That was for the
participation of local equity in foreign firms. So, many companies were subject to local control
on prices, imports, employment of expertise and etc. Many US companies left India in 1970
because of the nationalization policy. The nationalization policy frightened the foreign
companies on certain issues such as leakage of knowledge, and loss of trademark. That also
affected to Unilever because their control over the operation in market was lesser. For instance,
UAC, the subsidiary of Unilever that operated in many African countries, and its profit margin
and rate of profit remittance to its parent company was enormous. As UAC was nationalized, the
control of Unilever over the market where UAC operates was reduced. However, Unilever used
their experience to bargain with government so as to modify the regulations. In south and Central
America, Unilever only lobbied rather than involving in active politicking. Unilever never
sponsored any political parties. By using their tactical strategy and experience, Unilever has
gained political ground today. Unilever has become the member of many organizations all over
the world. Their aim is to make a fortunate business environment, and to facilitate reputation of
corporate management.

Customers and Clients

Unilever never sells their products under their own name and uses brand name to
illustrate diversity. For instance in UK, there are different brands of margarine for consumers to
choose. These are Stork, Blue Band, Flora, Summer County, and etc. However, these are the
products of Unilever. Unilever uses this strategy to get satisfaction of the consumers from
different groups of people. Consumers can make their choice from brands available. And
Unilever makes sure each country retain the local brand whenever their products are modified
because the company wants to keep their standard. Some of these brands are Algid in Italy,
Bresler in Chile, HB in Ireland, Miko in France, and GB Glace in Finland. The fact Unilever is
successful locally is strengthened by allowing every country to choose its own logo. Eg, the
former logo used in UK it was a yellow logo. On the other hand, there is a strong relationship
between Unilever and the customers based on local market and culture. For example, there are
3

various ethnic groups in Nigeria, where Unilever built a strong relationship with customers by
maintaining their high standard of corporate behavior towards local customers and employees.

Competitors
Especially in the Western Europe, Unilevers market environment is very
competitive at where Procter & Gamble (P&G) is the major competitor in the EU market.
Moreover, resulting from EU free trade policy, there has been so many discounters in EU market.
That affected on profit potentials of Unilever. Unilever has been encountering competitive
problem in Europe since 1990. Unilever has been spending more on R&D to provide the
products with reasonable price and that meets the customer satisfaction, too. Unilever is also
connecting their business partners to for promoting cross-border collaborations. The Heart
Brand, a logo launched in 1991, it is designed strategically to gain brand awareness
internationally and promote international synergies in marketing and manufacturing.

That

strategy is for recognition of Ice-cream brands and to recognize that other units are integral part
of Unilever. With different product standard, global brand can carry the same logo and brand
name. Since 2004, Unilever set a 5 years plan to cut 1200 brands that are underperforming due to
the lack of brand recognition in the market, to yield sales growth of six percent. In 2002,
Unilever opened a procurement center in Shanghai, China to serve as a source of raw material
for Chinese companies as to compete favorably and internationally. Since 1989, Shanghai Van
Den Bergh has become a joint venture between Unilever and Shanghai Sugar, Cigarette and
Wine .FMCG producers has been pressuring by the retailers to reduce the prices of the products.
On the other hand, customers would not favor to buy expensive products or brands due to current
economic flow. As the competition in Europe is growing strong, Unilever is having difficulties in
places like Netherlands and France. Unilever adopted their strategy to sustain their profitability
drive at where with political instability like the developing countries, Asia and Africa.

Conclusion
Unilever is operating in about 100 countries around the world with 206000
employees. Unilever is penetrating into the big emerging economies like Africa and Asia where
their business is better than in EU market. In 2005, more than one third of their turnover came
from the emerging economies and developing countries. Even though, these economies have a
very unsteady environment, and it is challenging for Unilever to monitor and respond quickly to
4

changes in market performance to safeguard their business. Since Unilever has initiated the Path
to Growth strategy, which is the headway toward actualizing the dream of the organization. This
system is a key control strategy through IT. The reason of this strategy is because of the
underperformance of some of Unilevers products especially the frozen food. The strategy is to
increase effectiveness, reduce cost structure and improve market competitiveness.
To reach where they are today, Unilever maximized their available resources and
went as far as creating a dedicated division that focuses on aligning strategy to sustainability.
This division not only includes experts in engineering and business, but also agronomists that
can provide a different perspective and add the necessary skillset variety to the team. Unilever
assigned a Chief Sustainability Officer and made every effort to learn more about their suppliers
business practices. The latter helped them weed out those suppliers that were not aligned with
their vision of being sustainable and could hurt their reputation. The appointment of a CSO was
crucial as this became a business unit that has grown into the organizations core beliefs.
In sum, there were two main keys to success that Unilever adopted to become a SustainabilityDriven grown company. First is Identifying, accepting, and committing to the need for change.
And second is aligning every party involved in the chain to their strategy to make sure they all
moved toward the same goals. So that, they continue to grow stronger today.

References

Akamavi, R; McKyitt, A. and Boateng, A. (2004). Assessing the Francophone West

Africa market: An ETOP analysis.
Bito Storage System. (2003). Unilever goes live.
Catherine Colbert. Unilever UK Home and Personal care.
Corporate Watch. Influence and Lobbying.
ElAmin, A. and Simon P. (2005). Unilever continues to struggle against P&G
Embracing Difference.

FitzGerald, N. (2003). Understanding people to build brands.

Frances, A. J. (2006) Unilever posts N1.6b after tax profit, Wise Trade.
HLL. (2005). Hindustan Lever: Growing with India.
Hoovers. (2006). Unilever Cosmetics International.
Hoover. (2006). Unilever.
ICMR. (2004). Unilever's Strategies in China.
Unilever. (2013). Unilever Annual Report.
Unilever. (2006). Unilever signs agreement to sell European frozen foods business.