This document provides a strategic analysis of Unilever. It analyzes Unilever's key capabilities related to success factors, identifies key stakeholders using stakeholder theory, assesses Unilever's culture using theoretical frameworks, and recommends future strategies. Specifically, it finds that Unilever's people, strategic focus, marketing, and financial management contribute to success. It identifies consumers, partners, and shareholders as key stakeholders and assesses Unilever's mixed organizational culture. Finally, it recommends anticipating challenges, improving employee training, and ensuring diversity and sustainability.

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STRATEGIC ANALYSIS OF UNILEVER

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Name Touseef Ahmed
Student Number 10375436
Course MBA
Module Title Business Strategy
Module Code B9MG100
Lecturer Martin O’Dea
Assessment Title Individual Assignment for Business
Strategy

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................................................4
Analysis of Unilever’s capabilities that contributes in relating to the key success factors in the concerned market
....................................................................................................................................................................................5
Identification of key stakeholders of Unilever assessing the focus of Unilever on the right stakeholders (Using
stakeholder’s theory) .................................................................................................................................................7
Assessing Unilever ‘s culture using suitable theoretical frameworks ........................................................................9
Recommendation of strategy for future development of Unilever........................................................................ 11
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................................... 12
References............................................................................................................................................................... 13

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Introduction
Developing strategic operations in an organization is liable to develop effective regulative operations
within the company and the output of such implementation can be assessed through its adoption in the
market. Hence, the assignment has investigated assessing various areas of operational perspectives of
Unilever. Therefore, finding the reason behind the success of the organization that is implicating on its
services is the core focus of the assignment. Initiation of the assignment is focused on analyzing
Unilever’s capabilities that relates to key success factors of the organization. proceeding through
Unilever’s stakeholder integration, the cultural diversity in the organization is also aimed to be discussed
within the assignment. Finally, the assignment has aimed in developing suggestions depending on the
study that it will make through the course of discussion considering its effects on the growth of the
company.

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Analysis of Unilever’s capabilities that contributes in relating to the key success
factors in the concerned market
Unilever has sustained in the international market through a number of decades that are likely to
elaborate the capabilities that are likely to influence its market holding capacity. Hence, the importance
that the organization has put into its overall functions are considering the key success factors that helps
in developing effective functioning within the industrial stature. However, the operations can be
accredited to the key success factors that Unilever has taken into account in order to develop the
operations that hold the contribution of maintaining effective relations to different entities in the entire
operating stature. The key success factors that have been taken into account by the Unilever are the main
areas four areas that are likely to induce into delivering greatest opportunity in functioning. The 4 key
success factors are as discussed below:
• People: The people section under the credibility of the organization that is Unilever has been
incorporated with few key attributes in the market stature. Therefore, the people include
employees that is staffs, personnel, man force engaged learning and development in Unilever. In
the year 2010, Unilever rolled out a mission named Unilever Sustainable Living Plan. The plan
has been found to be inspiring to a number of people associated with the organization. Unilever
has produced many positive implications of the mission one of which is enhancement of the
employee engagement in the organization. As a result, to this, employee contributions have been
found to be rated by about 17 million Dollars in the year 2015 (Unilever global company
website, 2018). On the other hand, the development of the functions in the organization has been
realized with certain employee engagement strategy such as compliance of the organizational
structure and functions with the legal and regulatory laws. Here, health and safety of the
employees have been seriously taken into consideration as an essential part in the business
operations of Unilever.
• Strategic focus: In order to incorporate effective management stature, it is important to be stated
that the organization has operated with equipped setting that focuses on effective management
and leadership styles. This has made the organization a scope to ensure that it includes effective
workforce including the young talents (Grant, 2016). Therefore, the organization has proceeded
through producing empowerment of the women workforce in the company and has currently
resulted into rising of the women occupying management grades to 45% from 38% within five

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years. Implementation of effective leadership style has been able to keep up with the confidence
of the leadership executives and the management team of Unilever even under turmoil
conditions. A total of about 169,000 employees are being managed and looked with care
currently in the organization with right strategic implementation (Unilever global company
website, 2018). The strategic focus of Unilever has also included effective talent management
along with leadership development that has been instilled effectively in the succession planning
(Stead and Stead, 2016). An underlying sales growth has been maintained by the organization
through implementation of such strategies that showed a growth rate of about 5.9%.
Management of organizational profitability has been found to be one of the reasons in the core
ground that has led to such high rate of sales growth in Unilever.
• Marketing: Unilever has sought the area of customer engagement as the core area that needs
maximum improvement. Unilever has realized that with the development of bright brands in the
market, it should also be liable to develop an effective reach ability of the products to the
consumers as and when they want them. Failing to make their products available to the right
customer at the right time may cause harm to their business. Hence, Unilever has sharpened their
customer service in order to ensure that their service levels can be credited for the on-shelf
availability of the products. This has been put into the priority list of the organization and thus
has resulted in developing good rapport with the customers indirectly. With the advancement of
the technology, Unilever has also embraced the digital marketing stature that enables driving of
the sales through more than one customer channels. The e-commerce sales in the entire industry
have been found to be rapidly growing with effects and impacts in different countries including
China and UK (Chatterjee et al, 2018). Unilever has found that majority of the customer
population in the market in constituted by women. Therefore, the women drive the purchasing
decision in the market highly and thus, Unilever has produced an effective program for customer
engagement keeping the women population into consideration. Besides, Unilever has also aimed
at centralizing their operations with developing network of Ultra logistic control towers globally
that contributes in improving on the services provided to the customers.
• Finances: As the organization knows that it has to develop certain perspective of functioning
within the market value Unilever configures its operations through effective portfolio
management of their assets and finances. This has duly helped in developing adaptation in the
market facilities where the changes in the demand of the customers according to their

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preferences. Besides, the working capital and the fixed asset efficiency have been found to be
helping in improving the overall operations in the market (Lee and Tang, 2017). When the
working capital is calculated as a sales percentage, it shown a negative value. Therefore,
Unilever depicted it as a situation where the business growth is intrinsically driven by the cash
generation. Therefore, the growth in the business has been found to be implicated in the situation
of reduction in the ratio of fixed asset and sales. The organization has also found increase in the
non-current asset (of 1.0 billion Euro) and this growth rate was driven by expenditure of the
capital.
Identification of key stakeholders of Unilever assessing the focus of Unilever on the
right stakeholders (Using stakeholder’s theory)
Stakeholder’s theory
(Source: Gray et al. 2016)
The above picture shows inclusion of the stakeholders in an organization following the stakeholder’s
theory. The theory suggests that an organization operates in a manner that they reflect on the values and
morals during management of an organization (Gray et al. 2016). Therefore, the stakeholder theory is a
theory that encompasses the business ethics and its influence on the organizational management. As
suggested by the theory, an organization has a number of stakeholders that participate actively into the
business conduction. The stakeholders have been configured under two different categories such as
internal and external stakeholders. These stakeholders take part in the regulation of the organizational

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business within the entire industrial entities either directly or indirectly. Following this theory, Unilever
has developed an effective strategy to identify and inoculate the right stakeholders within the business.
Unilever has put stress on development of converging focus on the consumers among those whom
Unilever take into account to develop right relationship with. The greatest priority is given to the
consumers (about 2 billion) whom the company serves on a daily basis. Therefore, the impact of the
decisions made by these stakeholders of the company is considered to be most intensive for Unilever
(Sodhi, 2015). Unilever also maintains its approach in order to ensure that the relationship between the
partners and collaborates are smooth and fruitful. Therefore, they maintain an approach towards their
partnerships and collaborations that exists along the value chain of the company. The company
acknowledges that their operations consist of a broach huge base consisting of long-term customers that
the company has taken along with success stairs. These stakeholders have been benefitted from the
overall functioning by about 15.6% through Total Shareholder Return in the year 2015.
Another important group that Unilever has considered as an important stakeholder is the NGOs and the
governments. This is done in order to ensure that changes are driven into the society for good of the
society. Unilever has incorporated in a Partner to Win program where they have instigated participation
of the stakeholders in order to create innovations in their products as well as the packaging system. The
organization has worked with large number of partners in their supply chain in order to welcome ideas
from the stakeholders and this has yielded in receiving of 69% of the innovative stances (of Unilever)
from the technologies, which are supplier-sourced. Using of the reusable packaging system is one of the
examples of such innovative operations that have been provided by Sonoco for a brand of US (Country
Crock). The bunch of stakeholders that Unilever associates its operations with are their consumers, the
people engaged directly with manufacturing of products, the society and the shareholders. Unilever has
produced functions that were aimed at tackling the three main areas of problems of the world such as
environmental, social and economic. The USLP program of the organization has been a large success
that has continually produced impacts on improving the health as well as developing well-being of the
society. The organization also stresses on the development of consistent shareholder returns. Here, the
portfolio management has also been considered as a contributor to develop shareholder returns. Unilever
has configured a four-category strategic operation that is focused on improving the returns on the
shareholders’ investment (Zhang et al. 2016). The growth model of Unilever has been enabled by
efficient and talented organizations that function as partners of Unilever. The project named Project
Half for Growth has enabled the delivery of 500 million Euro of the cost savings annually.

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Assessing Unilever ‘s culture using suitable theoretical frameworks
Unilever has related its progression of the business to the culture that the organization follows. The
managers in the organization believe management, leadership and culture in an organization is majorly
interrelated. Hence, Unilever has developed an integration of theories such as encouraging innovation
among the employees along with increasing of productivity in the firm. Certain characteristics of the
organizational culture of Unilever have been found through analysis of the organizational functioning.
The identified characteristics are as follows:
• Focus on the quality: In order to conjugate the market operations along with effective and
efficient services to the consumers it is mostly important to focus on the quality of the outputs
that Unilever produces. In order to ensure that the operations would be qualitative the
organization has related it to the company culture. For example, an effective cultural framework
is used in Unilever that adopts innovation in all aspects of production of services and products
(Walker and Soule, 2017). This kind of culture can be related to the adhocracy culture that
supports improvised implementation of programs along with finding of creative solutions to the
problems.
• Focus on organizational performance: The organization has considered the consumers as the
most important entity where the major focus of organizational operation is fixed. This has been
instilled by the organizational culture that reflects on focusing on quality providence in each
aspect of organizational performance. In terms of delivering the operations to the right
proportion to the market, the organization aims to stress on both the individual and
organizational performances (Lee and Tang, 2017). Such kind of culture is indicative towards a
market culture where the focus is on quality production.
• Efficiency of the works: Unilever believes working efficiency of the employees can be enhanced
through effective integration of the employees into the organizational system. developing
friendly relationship with the employees along with providence of employee satisfaction through
various programs. This can be considered to be a part of the clan culture where the leaders
behave as mentors and envelops the operations of the workers.
Therefore, Unilever is found to be an organization that has instilled a mixed culture within its
organizational framework. This helps in developing work ethics of the employees present in the
organization that is liable to maximize the business output of the company. All the implications of the

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organizational functioning have been evident in the development of Unilever from a small firm to a
global powerhouse. The organization has developed an effective cultural integration that has evolved
through implementation of work ethics among the entire workforce of the organization. on the other
hand, an integrative study of Unilever has stated that the leadership in the organization plays an
important role in developing the organizational culture. The leaders in the company practice making
management statures that are induced by the result-based approaches along with the market-based
approaches. Hence, the effects of the external conditions of the organization can be directly brought into
implication to have a direct influence on the work aspects of the organization. This is likely to state that
result based management is implemented with maximum consciousness so that the business has an
effective interrelation between the company culture and objectives (Chatterjee et al. 2018). Hence,
Unilever operates in the market situation through a collective approach that helps in developing an
integrated organizational culture. Human resource structures and functions can be highly effective in the
terms of ensuring the Unilever functions with an effective human resource operations and management
that is likely to develop enhancement in the structural entity of the organization.

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Recommendation of strategy for future development of Unilever
Enabling future development in the organization is the core activity an organization aims to perform.
Varieties of aspects are included in this stature in order to ensure that the logistics show positive
enforcement of the value return on investment in various levels.
Unilever has come across large implications of market operations that has effectively instilled into its
framework of operations. However, the assignment aims to develop certain recommendations for the
strategic functioning of the organization derived from the above analysis.
In order to sustain in the highly competitive market condition it is important for the organization
(Unilever) to develop an anticipation of the challenges that may affect the organizational performance
and operations in the industrial sector. This is because; there is rapid change in the consumer behavior
that is likely to alter consumer habits. Therefore, in this stature, the organization should be able to
develop market or consumer-oriented operations and innovations so that products are consumer relevant.
Unilever has largely integrated youths and capable workforce in the organization through effective
employee recruitment program that has implicated on the involvement of continuous growth of the
company from multiple aspects. However, Unilever should also be aware of the increasing competition
where talents are offered with attractive remuneration in large number of competitors. Therefore, it
should pay attention to develop an effective employee induction operation that would focus on training
of the newly recruited employees in the organization (Bocken et al. 2014). This would develop the
employee generosity in the business along with development good idea of the operations in Unilever.
Hence, the employees would be more adaptive to the practical learning and challenges that Unilever
may usually face. Besides, the new employees might also be trained in a way so that the future
challenges can be dealt with effectively.
Unilever should be more active in developing the training projects in order to develop aspects of
sustainable business. The business should therefore, be put forward through training of employees as
ambassadors to sustain human rights. This will develop and enhance the company’s image as a major
player on the ethical ground. Hence, the philanthropic attitude of the organization would be more
effective in the market stature. On the other hand, the sustainable development should also be in hand in
hand operation so that there is consistent development of the functions (Schwartz, 2017).

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On the other hand, Unilever should also be aware of the operations that are included to have sustainable
use of their resources. Hence, engagement of the organization should be ensured in order to hold the
liability of the organization for instigation of the complete functional appropriateness. However, the
organization under discussion should also function through accommodation of policies in the
organization that ensures incorporation of diversity.
Conclusion
The assignment has discussed various areas that have been producing implications on the business that
are liable to show the reason behind the huge success of the company over the years of operations.
Therefore, in order to ensure that there is effective implementation of the strategic plans in the
organization Unilever has indulged into variety of operations that facilitates positive decision-making.
Besides, the organization has been found to involve into a practice of mixed culture implementation in
order to benefit employees, shareholders and other stakeholders. Therefore, the benefit gained by the
organization has been found to be result of effective criteria setting of the organization to ensure that
different stakeholders are involved in the operations to develop stakeholder returns. The operations in
Unilever have reflected generating trust among the shareholders through providing them large return in
the investment. In addition, the study derived that stakeholders are also integrated in organizational
operations through engaging the innovations that the supply chain technology can provide. Therefore,
such integrated and updated operational planning of Unilever has replicated itself through increased
market share and sales growth.

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References
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Chatterjee, K., Adhikary, K., Sen, S. and Kar, S., 2018. Identification and Analysis of Factors Affecting
Consumer Behavior in Fast Moving Consumer Goods Sector. Business Perspectives–Aims and Scope,
p.2.
Grant, R.M., 2016. Contemporary strategy analysis: Text and cases edition. John Wiley & Sons.
Gray, S., Paolisso, M., Jordan, R. and Gray, S. eds., 2016. Environmental Modeling with Stakeholders:
Theory, Methods, and Applications. Springer.
Lee, H.L. and Tang, C.S., 2017. Socially and environmentally responsible value chain innovations: New
operations management research opportunities. Management Science, 64(3), pp.983-996.
Schwartz, M.S., 2017. Corporate social responsibility. Routledge.
Sodhi, M.S., 2015. Conceptualizing social responsibility in operations via stakeholder resource‐based
view. Production and Operations Management, 24(9), pp.1375-1389.
Stead, J.G. and Stead, W.E., 2016. Spiritual capabilities: keys to successful sustainable strategic
management. In Spirituality and Sustainability (pp. 89-103). Springer, Cham.
Unilever global company website. (2018). Unilever global company website | Unilever Global. [online]
Available at: https://www.unilever.com/ [Accessed 6 Aug. 2018].
Walker, B. and Soule, S., 2017. Changing company culture requires a movement, not a
mandate. Harvard Business Review, pp.2-6.
Zhang, M., Qian, Y., Wang, X., Cao, C., Lin, Y., Wang, K. and Huang, X., 2016. Survey on cognitive
attitude and participation willingness of public hospitals social evaluation based on stakeholder’s
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