chain framework and generic strategy Research Paper 2022

E-business
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Executive Summary
The paper helped in evaluating and classifying the current e-business strategy used by Unilever.
It is seen that the company uses a B2C strategy by delivering products directly to its consumers.
The firm uses differentiation strategy as its generic strategy to gain a competitive advantage
within the market. With the help of the McKinsey 7S model, PESTEL and Porter’s five forces
analysis, it is seen that digital technology creates an impact on the company’s business strategy.
It has also been noticed that following disintermediation and reintermediation strategy creates an
impact on the company’s e-supply management, value chain framework and generic strategy by
improving its business activities.

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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction.......................................................................................................... 3
1.1 Overview of Unilever................................................................................................ 3
2.0 Analysis of the impact of digital technology.......................................................................4
3.0 Evaluation of the concept of disintermediation and reintermediation.........................................7
4.0 Recommendations and discussions................................................................................. 10
References................................................................................................................... 12
Appendices.................................................................................................................. 15

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1.0 Introduction
E-business strategy can be defined as a long-term plan to put digital technology in the right place
so that the company could manage its electronic communications with all the partners. The
fundamental objective of the report is to critically analysis the current e-business strategy of the
multinational company in order to evaluate the impact of digital technology on the business.
Moreover, Unilever is the multinational company selected for analyzing the e-business strategy.
The report will use different theories or frameworks for analyzing the impact of digital
technology on the business of Unilever. It will provide an overview of the firm based on the
online as well as offline activities. Besides this, the concepts of disintermediation along with
reintermediation within the industry in which the organization operates will be evaluated to
examine that existing players in the industry use new intermediaries for promoting their services
through advertising. Few recommendations will be provided to the multinational company to use
social media as well as social commerce for expanding the business and achieve the goals. E-
business assist the business in purchasing as well as selling products or services through internet
and accomplish business objectives.
1.1 Overview of Unilever
Unilever is considered as the oldest multinational company of the United Kingdom. It offers a
range of products to the customers, which include cleaning products, food products and beauty
along with personal care goods. It has earned a revenue of around €50.982 billion in 2018 and
contains more than 155,000 employees as of 2019. The company operates in the consumer goods
industry and serves customers throughout the world. It is identified that the business model of the
company is Business-to-consumer model, which assist the firm in selling its products directly to
the target customers. By using the B2C model, the corporation is not required to take help from
any wholesalers, intermediaries and third-party retailers. The purpose of Unilever is to make a
sustainable living to commonplace and offer a range of products to millions of consumers across
the globe. Based on the business-to-consumer model, the organization effectively develop a
value chain and build a personalized campaign to meet the client’s demands. Moreover, Unilever
is working in driving both B2B and B2C business models in order to attract more online
customers and develop its e-commerce chain (Mukiira, Musau and Munyao, 2017).