Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing

Individual Assignment
December 2020
Advanced Management Competencies (AMC)

Examination /Assignment Registration 15 to 29 November 2020

Period

Examination / Assignment Registration 30 November to 04 December 2020

Grace Period

Assignment Submission Period 05 and 06 December 2020

Assignment Acceptance time period Weekend and Weekday from 9.00am to 3.00pm

Presentation Date N/A

Email address to send soft copy amc.pgd@slim.lk

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GUIDELINES

ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION:

 You are required to register for examinations / assignments within the above given
period. Assignments will not be accepted if you have not registered for the
examination/assignment.
 Assignments should be submitted to SLIM within the Assignment Submission Period
indicated above.
 Assignments will not be accepted after the late submission period under any
circumstances.
 SLIM will issue an acknowledgement slip upon the submission of your assignment and
it must be retained by the student as proof of submitting the assignment.

ASSIGNMENT COVER PAGE:

 Attached cover page format should be used, printed in the relevant colour (Stage 1-
Blue/Stage 2-Green/ Stage 3-Pink).

THE ASSIGNMENT MARKING SHEET should be attached after the cover page followed by
the Assignment checklist & declaration form.

A SOFT COPY of your assignment should be sent to the above mentioned email address for
which you will receive an automated reply of receipt of the assignment. If you do not
receive the automated reply, please verify with the course coordinator. The soft copy
is only a reference document that will not be considered as an assignment
submission.
IMPORTANT NOTES
 If you have not submitted the assignment your results for the respective subject will
appear as “Fail” in the final grading.

 In case of absence at the examination, the student has to re-do the assignment in
order to pass the subject in the next examination.

 If you are a student of an Accredited Study Centre, you can submit the assignment to
the accredited study centre and presentation date and time will be notified to the
centre once all assignments are received by SLIM Home and SLIM web site.

 Present university students are allowed to submit the assignment without attending
lectures since they are registered as self-study students. However, they have to
attend individual presentation sessions.

 Refer student deliverables indicated below for specific details about assignment
submissions and presentations.
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 Unilever’s Corporate Response to Covid-19 Pandemic
BACKGROUND

Covid-19 is clearly an unprecedented situation and has created multiple challenges in the
business world. The pandemic demands more and more creative and thoughtful decisions to be
made rapidly in organizations. Unilever is one of the companies which has promptly reacted to
the demands in both the market and social platforms.

Prior to the Covid-19 crisis, hand sanitizer business represented a small portion of the Unilever’s
global Beauty & Personal Care portfolio. The hand sanitizer product was available from Lifebuoy
brand, with a range of gels designed to appeal to young children and their hygiene-conscious
parents. Soon after Covid-19 took hold, Unilever moved to produce hand sanitizers at a pace
that was previously almost unimaginable to help prevent the spread of infections. The company
increased its production capacity of hand sanitizers worldwide by more than 600 times in
tonnage.

The above rapid change was accomplished as a result of getting good corporation and support
from employees, partners, retailers, etc. and using resources to scale up its production
capabilities significantly. Ampy Aswin, Vice President of Supply Chain for Skin Cleansing and Skin
Care, who lead this transformation, expressing her experience in the process mentioned that
the company could anticipate the need for hand sanitizers at the early stages of the pandemic
and realized the importance of fast responding to the same. According to Aswin, upon making
the call to proceed with, the company managed to set up a cross functional virtual team within
24 hours to attain its goal. The virtual team was including representatives from Brand teams,
Supply Chain, R&D and Distribution. This team was empowered adequately and soon started
finding their ways and means of working together towards achieving the set goal of producing
large quantity of hand sanitizers within a short period of time.

Amidst of having difficulties in accessing, the team managed to liaise with potential suppliers
across the globe. Meanwhile, some of the internal factories were also transformed to produce
hand sanitizers. The experts in the deodorant business were consulted to ensure the fact that
the team proceeds in a direction which is technically accurate.

According to Aswin, the team was clearly convinced about the goal to be achieved and that
alignment enabled them to plan out their tasks and roles effectively. The team members were
using the opportunity given to them by the company to make collective decisions in relation to
product specifications, action priorities, etc. Ultimately, the team managed to come up with the
final product, produced it in large quantities and supplied it to the market within a short period
of time as expected. The factory in Vietnam was the first to make this major change, switching
production to hand sanitizers in just 25 days. By now, the company has launched 50 different
packs of hand sanitizers in various international markets.

In this context, Alan Jope, the CEO of Unilever highlighted that the social responsibilities the
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company has also thought during this pandemic in addition to the change in the product
portfolio. According to Jope, Unilever, being the world’s biggest soap company, has realized its
responsibility to help during this coronavirus pandemic. He highlighted the social, medical and
moral obligations of the company to make soap more readily available worldwide. “We have to
deploy our expertise in how to teach people to handwash effectively, whichever brand they
choose to use. So, today, we have announced a set of measures to support global and national
efforts to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic. To protect lives and to protect livelihoods” he added.

The actions the company has worked started with consumers and communities, to whom they
have committed to provide free soap, sanitizer, bleach and food to the value of €100 million.
Around half of this will go to the COVID Action Platform of the World Economic Forum, which is
supporting global health organizations and agencies with their response to the emergency. The
other half will come from the many product donations, partnerships and hand washing
education programmes that the company is putting in place at a national and local level.

According to the company’s published sources, initiatives in the US, India, China, UK,
Netherlands, Italy and many other countries are already well underway. The Lifebuoy team, for
example, has been working hard to manufacture and distribute millions of bars of free soap to
those most in need. For the customers and suppliers, the company has decided to offer €500
million of cash flow relief to support livelihoods. This is to be arranged in the form of early
payments for the most vulnerable small and medium-sized suppliers and extending credit to
selected small-scale retail customers whose business relies on Unilever.

Sources:

1. https://www.unilever.com/news/news-and-features/Feature-article/2020/how-our-hand-
sanitiser-business-adapted-to-meet-global-demand.html
2. https://www.unilever.com/news/news-and-features/Feature-article/2020/from-our-ceo-we-
will-fight-this-pandemic-together.html

TASK ONE

Describe ‘organization change’. Referring to the experience of Unilever as highlighted in the

above case, explain the role of employees and organizational management to bring about
successful product changes.

Guideline Note 01

Refer to the subject module and describe what it is meant by ‘organization change’. Based on
your learnings with regard to innovation strategies, you need to explain how employees could
support an organization to bring about new innovations. Further, discuss on how the company’s
management should facilitate the employees in this regard.

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TASK TWO

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is considered as an integral element in the contemporary

business world. Discuss how Unilever has successfully initiated multiple CSR initiatives,
particularly to mitigate the negative impact on the business environment from Covid 19
pandemic. Also discuss possible short and long term benefits the company would gain as a
result of the above initiatives.

Guideline Note 02

Explain Corporate Social Responsibility. Referring to the case, discuss on various CSR initiatives
that Unilever has executed. Focus more on the potential impact on the beneficiaries. Students
also need to explain potential benefits that Unilever will enjoy, both short term and long term,
as a result of those CSR initiatives.

TASK THREE

What is a Virtual team? Briefly explain the unique characteristics of a virtual team compared to
conventional physical team. Highlight and discuss various obstacles a virtual team would face
whilst carrying out their work together. Identify and explain factors which enhance the
cohesiveness of virtual teams (you may refer to examples from other companies where they
have used virtual teams to accomplish various tasks).

Guideline Note 03

Explain the words ‘Teams’ and ‘Virtual teams’. List out unique characteristics to be found in
virtual teams compared to non-virtual physical teams. Discuss various obstacles a virtual team
would come across whilst working as one team (such as obstacles in communication, task
allocations, controlling and monitoring, mutual understanding, etc.).

Explain the word ‘Cohesiveness’. Identify factors which could strengthen the cohesiveness of a
virtual team with suitable examples.

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IMPORTANT:

Please refrain from copying-and-pasting information from the Internet or another source and
make sure to reference your work according to the Harvard referencing format.

Word allocation for each task

Task Content Weightage
Task one 35%
Task two 35%
Task three 30%
Total (Word count 3500 ± 10%) 100%

Note: Please refer the given assignment marking scheme for marks allocation.

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 ASSIGNMENT CHECKLIST & DECLARATION

This document is intended as a guide to check and improve your assignment. Review your
assignment together with the specific guidelines and criteria (marking schedule) that are
mentioned in the programme handbook given to you.
You are expected to confirm that your assignment fulfils the below requirements. Please tick (√)
in the cages as necessary.

Student Name
Registration No ( As per registration book )
Cover page with relevant colour code of the stage
Stage 1 – Blue
Stage 2 – Green
Stage 3 – Pink
Assignment checklist & declaration form ( This sheet)
Assignment marking scheme is attached
Assignment sheet is attached
Table of contents
Body of the assignment
References
Course fee paid in full (coaching/registration/exam and membership)
Exam registration completed
Assignment emailed to relevant email address
(You will receive an automated reply of receipt for the assignment. If you do not
receive the automated reply, please verify with the course coordinator. The soft
copy is only a reference document that will not be considered as an assignment
submission)
I’m fully aware that any misleading information provided in the above checklist will lead to the
rejection of my assignment.

I, the undersigned, confirm that I have read and understood the statement about plagiarism
which is outlined in the students’ handbook. I confirm that the work that I have submitted
accompanying this report is wholly my own, and that any quotations or sections of text taken
from the published or unpublished work of any other person is duly and fully acknowledged
therein.

Signature: _________________ Date: _________________

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 Assignment Marking Scheme
December 2020

Subject Advanced Management Competencies (AMC)

Student Registration Number

Marks
Criteria Awarded
Allocated
Aligning to the purpose of the assignment 20
Some of the answer addresses to the purpose of the question 1-5
This has addressed the purpose of the assignment 6-10
Has addressed the purpose of the assignment coherently 11-15
This has addressed the purpose of assignment comprehensively 16-20
Clarity of expression 20
An attempt to organize in a logical manner 1-5
Satisfactory showing of logical manner and organization 6-10
Shows higher level of Carefully and logically organized 11-15
Shows coherent structure with clearly expressed ideas 16-20
Using examples/evidences 20
Shows a little use of examples 1-5
Some use of examples. Some evaluation attempted 6-10
Some use of examples. Well evaluated 11-15
Shows appropriate examples are fully and reliably evaluated 16-20
Critical analysis of concepts, theories, conclusions 20
Demonstrates limited evidence of critical analysis 1-5
Demonstrates some critical analysis of relevant theory 6-10
Demonstrates application of theory through critical analysis 11-15
Demonstrates application of critical analysis well integrated 16-20
Following assignment guidelines 20
Limited follow-up of assignment guidelines 1-5
Some level of follow-up of assignment guidelines 6-10
Good display of adherence to assignment guidelines 11-15
Excellent adherence to assignment guidelines 16-20
Total
100
Special Remarks

Signature of the Examiner

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 Advanced Management Competencies (AMC)

Assignment Topic

Student Name
Reg. No.

December 2020 Examination

Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing

Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing

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