Introduction to Business Operations and Management | Desklib

This report provides an overview of business operations and management, with a focus on Unilever as a case study. It covers the main functions of business operations, including HRM strategies, supply chain management, production, manufacturing, quality control, and location strategy. The report concludes that improving business operations can lead to higher productivity and sales, and that quality control is crucial for customer satisfaction and brand reputation.

Business operations
and management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................2
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................3
Overview of the company......................................................................................................3
Aim.........................................................................................................................................3
Vision.....................................................................................................................................4
Mission...................................................................................................................................4
Main functions of business operations..................................................................................4
HRM Strategies of Unilever...................................................................................................5
Supply Chain Management ...................................................................................................6
Production...............................................................................................................................7
Manufacturing........................................................................................................................7
Quality Control Process..........................................................................................................7
Location Strategy....................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Business operation can be defined to the activities that businesses engage in on a daily
basis tasks to keep running and making money (Luo and Choi, 2021). There are six functional
area of business management which includes marketing, finance, technology, human resources,
strategy, operations and equipment. Every business operators should understand these areas and
focus on researching because they related to business operations. The three different types of
business operations invovles manufacturing, service and merchandising (Santoro, et.al., 2018).
The company is being chosen in this report is Unilever. It is a multinationtionl consumer goods
company and its headquarter is in London. The company was established in 1929.Unilever is
uified into three main categories such as personal care, home care and foods and refreshments.
This report will cover the general introduction of business operations and its main fubctions. In
addition to that it will decscribe the brief of the cosen company, At last, it will cover the
company's management decisions on production, supply chain, HR and quality control etc.
TASK
Company's overview
Unilever is a multinational corporation which provides goods to consumer. It was
founded in 1929 and its headquarter is in London (Murphy and Murphy, 2018). It is also known
as the largest producer of soap in the world. Its products are available in around 190 countries.
The products available such as ice creams, beauty products, personal care products, beverages,
foods, condiments, ice cream and cleaning agents. It has broad and deep portfolio of brands and
a diversified product range, which makes Unilever unique. Unilever also take care of the needs
and preferences of the consumers and bring innovation into products around the world. It has 52
billion turnover in 2021 and 3.4 billion people uses their products every day. The company also
has more than 400 brands that are household names. The company mainly focuses on the
development of a consistent HR strategy, that serves the entire operations of the company. The

company currently plans to make its brand stronger as well as developed a new product in the
market, which need a adequate amount of investment in research and development projects.
They also tries to fix and continue the top researcher in this particular sector.
Aim
Unilever's aim is to transform the overall system that grip individuals back by introducing
new laws, policies or social norms. It will also promote advantage, greater illusion and health
for every individual of the society. Their aim is to drive positive change through their brands.
Unilever's aim will inspire people that if they take small steps everyday it will make positive and
big difference in the world.
Vision
Unilever has a clear-cut purpose. The main purpose of Unilever is to make sustainable
general living. For the company it is the best long term way for business growth.
Mission
The mission of Unilever is “to add energy to living.” People use Unilever's products to
look good and feel good . As a business unilever have a responsibility to their consumers and to
the communities in which they have a presence.They said that we meet routine needs for
nourishment, sanitariness and personal care with brands that help people feel good and get more
out of life.” This mission province is that how the company satisfies the customers in various
prospect of their lives.
Main functions of business operations
There are the main functions of business operations which are mention below:
 Operational planning- The role of operations planning is to maintain operational
efficiency. It has the fundament function of business operation and the duties of this
function includes monitoring of production of goods, the production planning and many
more.
 Product design- Operations team plays an essential role in order to design the product.
Be cause without this team, the product producers may face trouble knowing what to
create.
 Strategy- It is the wide function of business operations that involves operational
planning. analysis and monitoring (Schermerhorn Jr, Bachrach and Wright, 2020). The

business objectives of an organization includes improving the production system,
controlling cost, prioritizing customer satisfaction.
 Finance- It is an general and essential function in business operations management
because every company seek to bring down costs and gain profits. The operation manager
assure the company's leaders to keep the fund in intellection when they make important
decisions.
 Supply chain management- If a company make products or services, then the company
will need supply chain management for producing, origin and transportation. The supply
chain process should flow like this stuff, Supplier, retailer, distributor, manufacturer
retailer, consumer.
Company's operations management decision
HRM
Human resource is the backbone in any organization, it is the art of managing the
employees or workforce of a company that will help to achieving goals (Stone, Cox and Gavin,
2020). Unilever has the prompt human resource management. The company mainly focusing on
introducing the human rights, policies and rules to the employees and ensure that they carried
well. The strategic management concrete that the happiness between the employees directly
influences the growth and the success of its business (Nykyforenko, et.al., 2019). The Unilever
is an organization that have implemented innovative ways to assure the high motivation of
employees. In order to learn about the views of its employees, Unilever carried out trainings of
employees and external audits.
HRM Strategies
Unilever's human resource management wants to increase the future growth of the
company that's why they focus on the team building of employees. The company focus on hiring
the employees from various culture with region, race and gender to create various teams that
will effectively serve the customers across the nation. The company seek to advantage the
growth with the needful members accessible to lead the growth via skill and ability. The
company change its organizational structure and culture to sustain the growth. It also provides
fast training to build the capacity to alter growth, review employee retention approach and
modify its recruiting strategies.
Recruitment and selection process

The company presently works on processing a recruitment and selection strategy for all
the overall operation which is situated in several area (Dany and Torchy, 2017). By doing this it
develops a system called talent management solutions. This program is creating for current
employees for choosing the leader in actual working team. To select the recent graduates, there
are some steps which are discuss below:
 In selection process the first step is filling the application form by expected candidates.
 Then it is vital for the candidates to sit for tests which includes the psychometric and
aptitude test. It will helpful to measure the mental capability of the candidates which is
essential to get success in the company's work environment globally.
 After the completion of test process, they held the interviews which includes the
company oriented with the candidates as well as positioning of company to the
candidates. In this interview a lot of issues are involve which may be the question about
the candidate’s educational collection as well as their personal information.
 In this level the candidates need to do some exercise like project work, presentation and
case study by individually or together with other candidates in a group. It is the important
part for the selecting the candidates which is based on their performance. After that
selection committee would finally select the candidates for job. Selection board refers to
the committee of selection that defined with members of the top management team of the
company.
Employee Retention Strategy
Unilever has benefits plans and a strong pay to continue its primal executives . The
internal structure of the company annually reviewed the basic salary of the executives while
outside salaries paid by the other company. The top enforcement of Unilever utilise the pension
facilities after the termination and they also enjoy the other benefit. They have also long term
incentive plan for the administration involves awarding the employee with percentage of
Unilever. The top executives acquire annual payment for filling target and alter to the business
growth which is approximately 200% of any employees basic salary.
Supply Chain Management
Supply chain is a system between a company and its suppliers in order to produce &
distribute a product to final buyer (Copacino, 2019). In Unilever an unified supply chain will

give them the advantage to act with speed and enabling them to keep business scenario. At
present it is divided into following functions:
 Planning
 Manufacturing
 Engineering
 Quality Assurance
 Company buying
 Distribution
Production
The production management system is done in Unilever, according to the company legal
requirement and standards with required quantity, quality, cost and time. Monitoring and
managing line planning is done so that production reach its target (Shatalova, et.al., 2017). It also
ensure food safety, occupational safety as well as environmental standards which are
implemented systematically.
Manufacturing
 The employees number is around 265,000 people.
 The operations has divided into two categories: Home & Personal Care and Foods
 Unilever also has two parent companies : Unilever NV and Unilever PLC
 Its centres are located in London and Rotterdam.
Quality Control Process
It is the procedure by which a business testing to make sure that the service & quality of
product is improved or done correctly. maintained. Quality control is very important for building
a successful business that delivers products which meets the preferences and needs of the
customers (Montgomery, 2020). The industry uses quality control methods to make sure that
customers are satisfied or not satisfied from their products. It is used in a business testing units
and ensure if they are inside the condition for the final product. The quality control used in a
business is highly dependent on the company and their product. There are also several
techniques exist for measuring quality. There are 3 main objectives of quality control which
includes reducing risks, gain production efficiencies as well as enhance the quality of product.
In Unilever, the quality must be addressed throughout the value chain Quality control plays a

huge part. Importance of quality control in business operations and managements are given
below:
 Lowering operational and production costs
 Boosting morale in the workplace
 Improving methods of production
 Increasing sales
 Using resources effectively
 Improving customer satisfaction
 Improving brand reputation
Location Strategy
Unilever avoids such locations that have cultural & political issues because it can affects
operational productivity. Unilever's wants to decrease production and transport price of its
consumer goods to reach target marketplace. Operation managers of the company maintain
facility locations that modify locality to suppliers, labour and target markets.
CONCLUSION
As per above report, it has been concluded that the business operations and management
are playing very important role to improve the productivity of and organization. It improves the
productivity because higher ratio of business will lead to make the organization more efficient.
It is the fundament function of operations management such as monitoring and managing of
daily production of goods. By improving the business operations will help in achieving a higher
level of productivity and increase in sales of company. Supply chain, production and
manufacturing also plays various roles in the company's operations management decisions.
Quality control is crucial for building a successful business that delivers products which meets
the preferences and needs of the customers. The industry uses quality control methods to make
sure that customers are satisfied or not satisfied from their products. The human resource
management wants to increase the future growth of the company that's why they focus on the
team building of employees. At present, the company plans to fasten its brands and developed a
new product in the market, which required a adequate amount of investment in research and
development projects.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Copacino, W.C., 2019. Supply chain management: The basics and beyond. Routledge.
Dany, F. and Torchy, V., 2017. Recruitment and selection in Europe Policies, practices and
methods 1. In Policy and practice in European human resource management (pp. 68-
88). Routledge.
Luo, S. and Choi, T.M., 2021. Great partners: How deep learning and blockchain help improve
business operations together. Annals of Operations Research, pp.1-26.
Montgomery, D.C., 2020. Introduction to statistical quality control. John Wiley & Sons.
Murphy, P.E. and Murphy, C.E., 2018. Sustainable living: unilever. In Progressive Business
Models (pp. 263-286). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Nykyforenko, V., Kravchenko, V., Zbrytska, T., Kryvtsova, M. and Svorobovich, L., 2019.
Motivational monitoring as a component of effective human resource (HR) strategy of
company. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 18(2), pp.1-6.
Santoro, G., Fiano, F., Bertoldi, B. and Ciampi, F., 2018. Big data for business management in
the retail industry. Management Decision.
Schermerhorn Jr, J.R., Bachrach, D.G. and Wright, B., 2020. Management. John Wiley & Sons.
Shatalova, T., Chebykina, M., Zhirnova, T., Korobejnikova, E. and Bobkova, E.Y., 2017.
Innovative properties of the business raw materials potential formation and
operation. International Journal of Applied Business and Economic Research, 15(11), p.29.
Stone, R.J., Cox, A. and Gavin, M., 2020. Human resource management. John Wiley & Sons.