ASSIGNMENT 2 FRONT SHEET

Qualification BTEC Level 4 HND Diploma in Business

Unit number and title Unit 32: Business Strategy (574)

Submission date 13/08/2022 Date received (1st submission)

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Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................. 4
The strategic capabilities of the chosen company........................................................................................................ 4
1. Definitions of Strategic capabilities .................................................................................................................. 4
2. Diagnosing strategic capabilities....................................................................................................................... 5
3. Benchmarking Analysis ..................................................................................................................................... 6
4. Value Chain Analysis ......................................................................................................................................... 8
4.1 Primary Activities ...................................................................................................................................... 9
4.2 Support Activities .................................................................................................................................... 10
VRIO Framework Analysis ........................................................................................................................................... 12
1. Position among Retailers and Wholesalers – company name retail strategy ................................................ 13
2. Customer Community ..................................................................................................................................... 15
3. Opportunities in the E-Commerce Space ....................................................................................................... 17
Strengths and Weaknesses ......................................................................................................................................... 19
1. Strengths ......................................................................................................................................................... 19
2. Weaknesses .................................................................................................................................................... 20
Conclusion................................................................................................................................................................... 21
References .................................................................................................................................................................. 22
Introduction
P&G stands for Procter & Gamble is a multinational corporation specializing in consumer goods
from the United States, headquartered in the center of Cincinnati - Ohio State. This is considered
as a manufacturer of leading consumer products and brands in the world with diverse quantities
along with impressive revenue. It is because of these factors that the company is considered the
"big man" of the FMCG industry in the world, and the company is also considered a famous
corporation for business initiatives as well as brand management and product advertising. The
article reports a comprehensive assessment of both the external and internal environment to
make reasonable and correct recommendations for the company's strategy in the future. This
assignment is part of a strategic report, which aims to assess the company's internal environment.
More specifically, the report is divided into three main sections: Strategic Capability Analysis
through Benchmarking and Value Chain Analysis, VRIO Framework Analysis , and finally S&W from
analysis SWOT.

The strategic capabilities of the chosen company

1. Definitions of Strategic capabilities
The resource-based view (RBV) is a model that sees resources as key to superior firm
performance. If a resource exhibits VRIO attributes, the resource enables the firm to gain and
sustain competitive advantage. (Jurevicius, 2021)

Resource Based View (RBV) analyzes and interprets resources of the organizations to understand
how organizations achieve sustainable competitive advantage. The RBV focuses on the concept of
difficult-to-imitate attributes of the firm as sources of superior performance and competitive
advantage (Barney, 1986; Hamel and Prahalad, 1996). Resources that cannot be easily transferred
or purchased, that require an extended learning curve or a major change in the organization
climate and culture, are more likely to be unique to the organization and, therefore, more difficult
to imitate by competitors. According to Conner, performance variance between firms depends on
its possession of unique inputs and capabilities (1991).

Strategic capability is a concept that refers to the ability of an organization to develop and
implement strategies that will achieve sustained competitive advantage. It is therefore about the
capacity to select the most appropriate vision, to define realistic intentions, to match resources to
opportunities and to prepare and implement strategic plans. Strategic capability includes
resources and competences that a firm utilises to compete in its business environment. It can
therefore constitute a firm’s strengths and weaknesses, and be a source of competitive advantage
or disadvantage over its rivals. Strategic capability can be grouped into two categories: threshold
resources and competences, and unique resources and core competences. These are discussed in
the next subsections. ( Joy, 2015)

2. Diagnosing strategic capabilities

Benchmarking is defined as the process of measuring products, services, and processes against
those of organizations known to be leaders in one or more aspects of their operations.
Benchmarking provides necessary insights to help you understand how your organization
compares with similar organizations, even if they are in a different business or have a different
group of customers. Benchmarking can also help organizations identify areas, systems, or
processes for improvements—either incremental (continuous) improvements or dramatic
(business process re-engineering) improvements. ( ASQ, 2022)

A value chain is a business model that describes the full range of activities needed to create a
product or service. For companies that produce goods, a value chain comprises the steps that
involve bringing a product from conception to distribution, and everything in between—such as
procuring raw materials, manufacturing functions, and marketing activities. A company conducts
a value-chain analysis by evaluating the detailed procedures involved in each step of its business.
The purpose of a value-chain analysis is to increase production efficiency so that a company can
deliver maximum value for the least possible cost. (TARDI, 2022)
3. Benchmarking Analysis
The strategic, tactical, and operational levels all make use of these. Benchmarking is used across
the supply chain, from the manufacture of raw materials to the final customer. In order to
maintain steady sales and economic growth, ongoing expansion, and profit maximization, many
businesses adopt the benchmarking concept. P&G is one of these businesses.

The Procter & Gamble Company (PG - Get Rating) in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Unilever PLC (UL - Get
Rating) in London are leading players in the global consumer goods market. PG sells packaged
goods through mass merchandisers, e-commerce, grocery stores, membership club stores, drug
stores, and department stores. The company operates in five business segments—beauty;
grooming; health care; fabric & home care; and baby, feminine & family care. UL is a fast-moving
consumer goods company that operates through Beauty & Personal Care; Foods & Refreshment;
and Home Care segments. ( Vijayan, 2021)

One of Unilever’s CSR principles is “Crafting Brands for Life” (CB4L), a project of Marc Mathieu,
the new Senior Vice President of Marketing. This program had the following objectives: 1) Putting
people first, recognizing them as individuals, and not mere consumers; 2) Building “brand love” to
identify the people with their brands, not just their product; 3) Unlocking the magic, not just the
logic, in their execution (Bartlett, 2016). In order to accomplish this mission, Mathieu conducted
a series of workshops for Unilever’s 6,000 marketers and oriented them into linking their brands
with USP. ( Unilever, 2021)

P&G, on the other hand, focused on innovation in order to differentiate brand with competition.
This CSR program combines the needs and the possible solutions to problems by conducting
research and development (R&D) and knowing what people need and want. Unilever’s “Doing
Well by Doing Good” is matched by P&G’s transparency program, or it wants to be known as a
company that is governed responsibly and behaves ethically, i.e. it supports good causes and
protects the environment. P&G’s employees are treated well and provided the opportunity to
improve and perform well in the company (P&G report, 2021).
P&G’s “Doing Well by Doing Good” is a cause-oriented marketing. One example of “to do well by
doing good” which other organizations practice is when organizations donate to a chosen cause
for every purchase made by the customer. P&G has made it an important strategy to define its
role in the community and apply social and ethical standards to its business.

Procter & Gamble boasts a market cap of just about $300 billion. It generates nearly $70 billion in
annual sales. The consumer staples giant sells products in over 180 countries around the world
and operates in 10 product categories. It is largely focused on personal care products, from diapers
to soap to razors. The one thing it doesn't do is make food. Unilever, at a nearly $160 billion
market cap, is smaller than P&G, but still a giant company with a similar global reach. It generates
around $50 billion in annual sales. The company, based in Europe, operates in many of the same
industry segments and countries as P&G, but it also makes food. That is one of the key differences
here. ( Brewer, 2020)

Consumer goods stocks have seen strong sales growth in the second quarter of 2021, owing to
rising commodity prices and an improving job market. Despite rising inflation, relatively inelastic
demand for consumer goods should drive the industry’s growth in the coming months. The fast-
moving, global consumer goods market is projected to grow at a 5.4% CAGR to $15.36 trillion by
2025. So, both UL and PG should benefit. ( Vijayan, 2021)

For its fiscal fourth quarter, ended June 30, 2021, PG’s net sales increased 7.1% year-over-year to
$18.95 billion. The company’s gross profit came in at $9.16 billion, representing a 4.6% year-over-
year improvement. Its operating income was $3.54 billion for the quarter, up 1.7% from the prior-
year period. While its net earnings increased 3.8% year-over-year to $2.91 billion, its EPS increased
5.6% to $1.13. As of June 30, 2021, the company had $10.29 billion in cash and cash equivalents.
( Vijayan, 2021)
4. Value Chain Analysis

It is important for Procter Gamble to base its competitive advantage on activities in which it has
access to the rare or scare resources. It may include- intellectual capital, assets, skills or
distribution network. The Value Chain Analysis can help Procter Gamble identify those activities
and develop those areas to get a strong competitive edge over rivals. There are many examples
(like Toshiba and Sharp) that consider Value Chain Analysis as a tool to get a competitive
advantage and invest heavily in research and development activities within their value chain
network. Porter’s generic strategies for achieving the competitive advantage and value chain
model can be used together to set strong competitive advantage basis.

The analysis of the value chain activities can be done to understand the competitive advantage
sources. Procter Gamble can either use the operations, marketing and other relevant value chain
activities to avail the cost advantages or it can use the human resource, technology, infrastructure,
service or other relevant activities to set the strong differentiation basis. Broadly, the competitive
advantage sources can be grouped into two types- cost and differentiation. Procter Gamble can
obtain a competitive advantage from one or both sources, depending on the depth and breadth
of its Value Chain Analysis. Next parts of the article present in detail how Procter Gamble can
configure primary and/or secondary value chain activities to achieve the desired cost and
differentiation objectives.

4.1 Primary Activities

Inbound logistics
Relating this model to P&G’s case study, it could be implied that P&G’s raw materials are sourced
and/or procured from all over the world, wherever it would be cost-effective. It is thus no
surprise
that for a number of years it had focused on ways to improve supply chain efficiency and costs.
It now has a powerful industrial network linking electronically to major suppliers and customers.
This is to the extent that it changed companies when efforts to reduce inventory levels only
produced marginal improvements. This led to the introduction of agent-based modelling. (
Boateng, 2021)
Operations (assembly, branch operations)
P&G’s operations had four business units: health and beauty, babies, snacks and beverages,
and fabric and home care. It offered more than 300 products including major brands like Tide.
It has been aggressively using product lifecycle management software since 2000 for new
product development. ( Boateng, 2021)
The company uses MatrixOne software for mechanising and automating the knowledge
components, and flow components, within the bringing-a-product-to market phases. In
addition, the company is planning to expand its use of agent-based modelling to actually run
important aspects of its operations so that end-to-end replenishment cycle for products could
be shortened drastically. ( Boateng, 2021)
Outbound Logistics (warehousing, shipping, fulfilment)
P&G’s largest customer was Wal-Mart that had a reputation for requiring suppliers to
coordinate their supply chain processes with its powerful just-in-time continuous inventory
replenishment system. A database is used to hold information about work processes vital for
 creating, reviewing, approving, and distributing products. This enabled the company to lower
its costs on item such as pigments and chemicals, and to reduce development time. ( Boateng,
2021)
Sales and Customer Service (sales, order processing, customer support
According to the case study, Wal-Mart was P&G’s largest customer, accounting for nearly 20
percent of its sales and could be responsible for one-third of P&G global sales by 2010. Wal-
Mart capitalised on this position to force P&G to sell wares to them at the cheapest prices
possible. With the coming of a new CEO in 2000, the company began to find new ways of selling
its major brands in more flexible, innovative and cost-conscious ways. This was apparently
because they were not meeting sales targets, and had to rely on price increase to do so. (
Boateng, 2021)

4.2 Support Activities

Financial Management (financing, planning, investor relations)

The company’s introduction of agent-based modelling saved them $300 million annually on an
investment less than 1 percent of that amount. This is because it was able to perform “what-if”
analyses on inventory levels, in-store stockouts, and transportation costs to find out alternate
rules to existing ones being analysed, such as ordering and shipping frequencies or product
allocation in distribution centres. It was discovered that trucks should be often dispatched
before fully loaded. Although transportation costs would be higher using partially loaded trucks
because of both driver time and fuel to deliver fewer goods, the simulation showed that retail
store stockouts would occur less often, thus reducing the amount of lost sales which would
make up for the higher distribution costs. ( Boateng, 2021)

Research and Development (product design, testing, process design, material research)

P&G came to be seen as unimaginative, even stodgy. It seemed weak in developing new
products, and had developed just one product in 15 years. This gave the chance for traditional
 competitors and makers of generic versions of their branded products to grab market share. It
established an Intranet called InnovationNet, which was used to bring people together who are
working on similar problems in order to generate synergy for new product ideas and product
development. Using the same intranet, P&G allows outsiders like research scientists and
entrepreneurs to search for new, innovative products worldwide. Further, it uses a very small
information technology group called Virtual Learning @ Procter and Gamble to develop the
concepts, designs, and packaging for potential new products. ( Boateng, 2021)

Human Resource Management (recruiting, training, compensation)

P&G began to use information systems to support how learning occurred within the company.
It created an intranet through which new employees could network with experts, learn from
projects and receive answers to pertinent questions. This system encouraged experts to share
their knowledge with ‘newbies’ through an implicit compensation or reward system. Further,
human resource was provided with tools they needed to enhance their trade. For example,
marketing personnel were given a platform where they could access data, marketing principles
and tools in order to make sound judgement about a situation. ( Boateng, 2021)

Marketing and Advertising (market research, promotion, advertising)

The company employed the use of knowledge systems to manage marketing. It also uses a very
small information technology group called Virtual Learning @ Procter and Gamble to develop
the marketing for potential new products. Further, it works with marketing company called
Cre8 to put together virtual presentations that demonstrate new concepts to rapidly prototype
new features for current products, and even test how consumers react to alternative shelf-
space designs. Using information technology in marketing had been ignored in the past because
they saw it as complex. P&G’s various brands, product lines, customers, and even different
marketing groups each used their own independent software for some functions, including
 email and marketing campaign management. Currently, using zTelligence, P&G does much of
its market research and surveying online. ( Boateng, 2021)

VRIO Framework Analysis

VRIO Analysis is an internal analysis tool, used by organizations to categorize their resources based
on whether they hold certain traits outlined in the framework. This categorization then allows
organizations to identify the company resources that provide a competitive advantage. The VRIO
Analysis is an Internal Analysis tool. The framework is simple to understand, easy to use, and can
provide enormous value for organizations looking to stay ahead of competitors. This has made the
tool an obvious choice for many companies looking to analyze their internal environment. The
premise of identifying a firm's resource as a competitive advantage is whether it passes through
the dimensions of the framework. ( Cascade, 2022)

Resources Value Rare Imitation Organisational Competitive

support Advantage

Position Yes Yes Yes Yes Providing Sustainable

among Competitive Advantage
Retailers and
Wholesalers –
company
name retail
strategy

Customer Yes No - Yes Providing Strong

Community Competitive Advantage
 Opportunities Yes No Yes Yes In the long run it can
in the E- provide sustainable
Commerce competitive advantage
Space using
Present IT
Capabilities

1. Position among Retailers and Wholesalers – company name retail strategy

Value

P&G has large scale of operations, both in terms of revenues and geographic presence. The
company manages and operates on-the-ground activities in 70 countries worldwide. It markets
and sells its products in approximately 180 countries and territories around the world. In
FY2017, P&G generated 45% of its revenues from North America, 23% from Europe, 9% from
Asia Pacific, 8% each from Greater China and Latin America; and 7% from India, Middle East and
Africa (IMEA). As one of the world's largest consumer packaged goods companies, P&G has
scale advantages across its brands, businesses, and operations. This allows the company to
optimize its spending and streamline resources to better serve consumers and continuously
improve its efficiency and productivity. The company produces products in the US through its
24 manufacturing facilities spread across 18 states and territories. In addition, it owns and
manages 89 manufacturing plants in 38 other countries, of which fabric and home care products
are produced in 43 plants, baby, feminine and family care products in 41 plants, beauty
products in 24 plants, grooming products in 21 plants and health care products in 17 plants.
Therefore, large scale of operations helps it in expanding its customer base and its competitive
advantage. Additionally, the company's large scale of operations offers it strong bargaining
power. ( A Progressive Digital Media business, 2022)

Rare
 The Procter Gamble Company brand image is unique and contains high brand integrity. The
brand image has been developed over a long time, and through continuous effort and quality
product offering by the Procter Gamble Company. Following an internal brand audit, P&G is
working to leverage its corporate brand equity and strengthen its identity as one company
rather than as only the maker of Bounty, Cheer, Crest, or other individual brands. The brand
evolution came about after P&G’s stock prices faltered in 2000, and the company realized it
needed to take a fresh look at how it presented itself in the marketplace. The brand audit
resulted in a new corporate-focused selling line (“Touching lives, improving life. P&G.”) and a
new way of presenting the brand visually. (Knapp, 2008)

Inimitability

The brand image is a source of competency because it is unique to the Procter Gamble
Company, and cannot be imitated by other players, r be substituted by them. Procter & Gamble
has a strong brand name that forms a special bond with the consumers (Datamonitor, 2011).
Having dominated the industry for decades, the brand has distinguished itself as a reliable
source of products that meet the market demand. A strong brand improves the effectiveness
of the marketing endeavours of a company (Datamonitor, 2011). It also helps with the
diversification strategies where new product lines are adopted by the company and sold in the
market with ease in view of the fact that the brand is trust worthy.

Organisational support

The Procter & Gamble Company’s primary intensive growth strategy is market penetration. In
this intensive strategy, the main aim is to increase the company’s market share. Procter &
Gamble does so through marketing campaigns to increase consumer awareness about the
company’s consumer goods. This strategy is especially significant for low-performing products
in the market. In addition, Procter & Gamble implements this intensive strategy through
beneficial agreements with retailers. For example, P&G grows its market share by offering
 higher retail profit margins for some large retailers. In return such retailers display Procter &
Gamble’s products in prominent locations or shelves in their stores. The differentiation generic
strategy creates competitive advantage that helps increase success in applying the market
penetration intensive strategy. A strategic objective based on this intensive growth strategy is
to increase Procter & Gamble’s market share through aggressive marketing. ( Smithson, 2017)

2. Customer Community
Value

The community surrounding the personal product market of P&G is quite vast which leaves the
market wide open for the community to influence it. Societal and business interest groups are
constantly trying to make sure that the products P&G products are being regulated correctly
and will not cause harm to anyone using them or affected by production. The Consumer Product
Safety Commission is the main department in charge of regulating P&G’s products. Many
environmental groups have accused P&G of having harmful ingredients in their products.
Recently, Women’s Voices of the Earth, an environmental group, accused P&G of having
carcinogens in their products. It turned out that an ingredient was found that the EPA considers
a “probable carcinogen” in two of their Tide detergents. The ingredients were not intentionally
placed in the product, but a story like this and others still doesn’t sit well with the community.
The community will believe that events such as this were ultimately preventable by P&G and
may have an impact on their view of the company. Shown below is news coverage of the
Women’s Voices of the Earth actions towards Tide and some community reactions. ( Google
Sites, 2022)

Rare

P&G recognises that building enduring relationships between consumers and its category
leading brands starts with building enduring relationships with its large retail clients. P&G’s
approach to maintaining customer relationships is much, much more than ‘selling’. ‘It’s a P&G-
specific approach [that lets us] grow business by working as a ‘strategic part-ner’ with our
 accounts, focusing on mutually beneficial business-building opportunities’, states the CBD
website. ‘All customers want to improve their businesses; it’s [our] role to help them identify
the biggest opportunities.’ At P&G, build-ing and maintaining enduring customer relationships
involves working with customers to solve their problems for mutual gain. The company knows
that if customers succeed, it succeeds. ( Siddiq, 2020)

Organisational support

A marketing strategy being used increasingly often is influencer marketing, or targeting people
known to influence others so that they will use their influence in the marketer’s favor. These
influencers are the lead users we discussed in the chapter on designing offerings. If you spend
some time on Procter & Gamble’s (P&G) Crest toothpaste Web site, you might be given a
chance to complete a survey. (Someone who is very interested in dental care is more likely to
take the survey.) The survey asks if you talk about dental care products, if you research such
products, and if you influence others. These questions and questions like them are used to
identify influencers. P&G then provides influencers with product samples and opportunities to
participate in market research. The idea is that new offerings should be cocreated with
influencers because they are more likely to be both lead users, early adopters of new offerings,
and influence other people’s decisions to buy them. ( Tanner & Raymond, 2013)

An influencer panel does not necessarily become a community. If the communication that
occurs is only between the marketer and the individual members of the panel, no community
forms. The members must communicate with one another for a community to exist. For
example, a company may look for bloggers who regularly blog on subjects of importance to the
company’s market. Procter & Gamble looks for bloggers who write on subjects of importance
to moms. P&G then offers these bloggers samples of new Pampers products before these
products reach the market, research reports on Pampers, and other things that might find a
way into blogs. The goal is to influence the bloggers who already influence women. This
strategy, though, does not require that P&G create a community through a Web site or other
 activity (although P&G does create influencer panels through other techniques). ( Tanner &
Raymond, 2013)

3. Opportunities in the E-Commerce Space

Value

Procter and Gamble (P&G) have welcomed a 50% jump in year-on-year e-commerce sales on
the back of the ‘strength of its brands’ in a chest-beating financial filing for the third quarter.
The household goods provider and owner of the Olay and Tide brands, among many others, has
seen its market share in e-commerce equal that from bricks and mortar outlets as pandemic-
struck consumers stock up on cleaning supplies. Over the period net sales hit $18.1bn, with
organic revenues reaching 4%. ( Glenday, 2021)

P&G reported an overall revenue increase of 8%, noting that e-commerce now accounts for
more than 14% of the company’s total global sales. According to COO and CFO Jon Moeller, due
to a shift in consumer spending habits brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with
the company’s huge roster of personal hygiene and cleaning products—categories that have
soared in popularity due to the coronavirus—e-commerce could account for 20% of overall
sales in the near future. P&G has been increasing its e-commerce efforts since last year; in the
quarter ending in March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic had just begun in North America,
the company reported that online sales for some of its brands had already increased by 50%
year over year. E-commerce sales for the company neared $5.5 billion for its fiscal year in 2019.
In July 2020, as a shift in consumer habits due to the pandemic became more clear—and
seemed more lasting—P&G announced that it had partnered with Google Cloud to ramp up its
e-comm infrastructure, leveraging its AI and analytics tools and providing personalized, real-
time experiences for buyers. ( Glenday, 2021)

Rare
 Traditional fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies have begun acquiring, investing, or
building direct-to-consumer (D2C) and online-first brands. These companies have shifted from
solely selling their products on marketplaces such as Amazon, to running their own websites
and D2C operations. Though D2C and online sales represent a small percentage of the sales of
these companies, they have grown from almost nothing a few years back. ( Business Briefs,
2022)

Marico was among the first few traditional FMCG majors to invest in the D2C business, with the
acquisition of Beardo, and later Just Herbs. Apart from Marico, companies such as Hindustan
Unilever, Dabur, ITC, Emami and others have been investing in building the D2C platform. For
instance, HUL has focused on creating D2C channels for some of its premium brands by creating
online websites for each brand separately. ( Business Briefs, 2022)

Imitation

P&G sought a platform that could unlock those silos and provide a single view for business
users. At the same time, company leaders realized that they needed to foster a data-driven
culture—a growth mindset that put data and analytics at the forefront. AI, machine learning,
and advanced analytics were all seen as crucial to becoming a true digital leader. ( Campbell,
2022)

P&G found what it needed with the powerful suite of Microsoft Azure data and AI solutions,
such as Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Data Lake Storage, and Power BI. “Azure is helping
optimize the impact of digitization across Procter & Gamble, from democratizing AI with no-
code features to embedded capabilities in Power BI,” says Peri. “We appreciated the scale,
flexibility, and analytical muscle of Azure. The stack can go up and down depending on our
business needs. It also gives us leading data and algorithm capabilities with both the Azure
Synapse back-end and front-end Power BI tools.” ( Campbell, 2022)

Organisational support
 P&G’s selection of Microsoft as its cloud provider follows four years of collaboration between
the companies on data and automated intelligence. The partnership will provide better data
utilization, automation capabilities and digital twins technology; increase workforce efficiency
and productivity; and optimize environmental sustainability efforts in manufacturing. The cloud
solutions will allow P&G to “accommodate volatility in the consumer products industry with
innovative, agile solutions that can easily scale based on market conditions,” said Judson
Althoff, Microsoft’s chief commercial officer. ( Campbell, 2022)

Strengths and Weaknesses

1. Strengths
P&G, a manufacturer of consumer goods, places a strong emphasis on innovation and ongoing
marketing spending to gain a large competitive edge. The corporation has therefore made large
investments in R&D and marketing. P&G spent $1.9 billion on R&D in FY2017. By launching
products before rivals, innovation-based strategies give the firm the "first mover" advantage and
allow it to stay current with changes in the market. They also allow the company to offer its clients
cutting-edge goods and services. Additionally, a research by an industry source that records and
rates the most popular new consumer products launched in the US over the past 20 years
indicated that P&G's outstanding R&D capabilities and consumer-based innovations are supported
by large marketing expenditures. A strong emphasis on R&D enables P&G to regularly update its
product portfolio, which increases consumer loyalty and revenue growth. A wide range of
products and significant marketing expenditures to support its brands enable P&G to maintain its
leadership position in a cutthroat industry.

One of the top suppliers of branded consumer goods to different clients throughout the world is
P&G. The company is able to achieve operational synergies and provide its customers with
efficient service because to its diverse distribution network. The ten product categories offered by
the company—hair care, skin care and personal care, shave care, oral care, personal health care,
fabric care, home care, baby care, feminine care, and family care—are primarily stocked and sold
through a variety of mass merchandisers, grocery stores, membership club stores, drug stores,
department stores, distributors, wholesalers, baby stores, specialty beauty stores, online
channels, high-frequency stores, and pharmacies. In addition to this, it engages and works with a
variety of customers to improve their in-store and online shopping experiences. It also gets
feedback and reviews from its end users to determine how well these goods function. As a result,
the business is able to attract new and potential clients while also fostering long-lasting
relationships with its current clientele.

The company is able to achieve operational synergies and provide its customers with efficient
service because to its diverse distribution network. The ten product categories offered by the
company—hair care, skin care and personal care, shave care, oral care, personal health care, fabric
care, home care, baby care, feminine care, and family care—are primarily stocked and sold
through a variety of mass merchandisers, grocery stores, membership club stores, drug stores,
department stores, distributors, wholesalers, baby stores, specialty beauty stores, online
channels, high-frequency stores, and pharmacies. In addition to this, it engages and works with a
variety of customers to improve their in-store and online shopping experiences. It also gets
feedback and reviews from its end users to determine how well these goods function. As a result,
the business is able to attract new and potential clients while also fostering long-lasting
relationships with its current clientele.

2. Weaknesses
The remaining brands were developed by P&G, and very quickly they became well-known. The
decision to discontinue more than half of its brands hurt P&G's bottom line. However, it was
essential to provide the business a competitive advantage over rival businesses. Meeting
consumer demand for beauty and personal care products is an ongoing issue for businesses. The
market for cosmetics and personal care goods is particularly dynamic, necessitating frequent
adjustments to satisfy customer demand. P&G offers a list of brands that sell cosmetics and
personal care items. P&G needs to constantly innovate in order to compete in the personal and
cosmetic products sector. Large sums of money are needed for this, thus there will be small profit
margins. We are all aware of how quickly things are changing in the world. Due of this, many
businesses have yet to change the way they conduct business. There are numerous decisions to
be made as P&G expands from a small business to a global organization. According to P&G's CEO,
the organization's decision-making process is slow, thus it takes time to make judgments that
could have an impact on numerous critical business units and portfolios.

Conclusion
In conclusion, this paper has examined the P&G internal audit in great detail by examining its
capabilities from a variety of angles. A more detailed explanation of strategic capabilities and an
overview of P&G's capabilities have been given, along with evidence to support it that has been
gathered from reliable sources. Additionally, it can be observed through benchmarking analysis
that P&G is still regarded as being less efficient than its greatest rival, Unilever, despite having
many significant assets. As a result, the paper also discusses how P&G overcame its shortcomings
to outperform its rivals. In addition, the P&G Value Chain is detailed in great depth using both
primary and support activities and data gathered from reliable, official sources. As a result, it is
clear that P&G has made significant investments to guarantee that all procedures and operations
are carried out neatly and efficiently, hence reducing costs and enhancing performance.
Additionally, the VRIO Framework Analysis demonstrates P&G's competitive advantages clearly
and evaluates their significance to the company's growth. Finally, the results of the study above
have been used to clearly and explicitly portray P&G's strengths and flaws.
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 Index of comments

2.1 Strengths:

Benchmarking is applied appropriately.

Acceptable analysis of the value chain.
Comprehensive and effective application of VRIO framework.
Strengths and weaknesses are properly drawn from previous analysis. (P2 achieved)

Weaknesses:

Strategic capabilities are not drawn from your analysis.

How to further improve:

Benchmarking criteria should be presented more clearly.

Value chain analysis should follow the theory in your textbook.

Final result: achieved P2

Assessor: Nguyen Duc Trung (29 Aug 2022)

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