Business and Economic Environment of Unilever

Understanding Business and Economic Environment of
Unilever as a Manufacturing Industry
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Report/Assignment Title Understanding Business and Economic Environment
of Unilever as a Manufacturing Industry
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
1.1 Structure of Manufacturing Industry.........................................................................................2
1.2 Unilever and Manufacturing Industry.......................................................................................2
1.3 Analyzing External Business Environment of Unilever............................................................3
1.3.1 Social factor analysis..........................................................................................................3
1.3.2 Technological factor analysis.............................................................................................3
1.3.3 Environmental Factor Analysis..........................................................................................4
1.3.4 Political factor analysis.......................................................................................................4
1.3.5 Legal factor analysis...........................................................................................................4
1.3.5 Ethical factors analysis.......................................................................................................4
1.3.7 Economic Factors analysis.................................................................................................5
1.3.7.1 Identifying microeconomic factors..............................................................................5
1.3.7.2 Determinants of Supply...............................................................................................6
1.3.7.3 Competitiveness of the UK market..............................................................................7
1.4 Problems and challenges............................................................................................................7
1.5 External Effects of Business decisions......................................................................................7
1.6 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................8

Introduction
Here the manufacturing industry is elected to discuss business and environment. And the
company chosen for this study is Unilever which is a manufacturing industry. This multinational
manufacturing products corporation has two joint headquarters (in London and Amsterdam) and
is now the largest manufacturing firm in the United Kingdom in terms of sales. Its reported
revenue ($50.54 billion in 2018) came from four business divisions operating in 190 countries
across the world.
1.1 Structure of Manufacturing Industry
Traditional structures are commonly used by manufacturing industry to organize their resources.
Almost usually, this entails departmentalization in order to group related duties together.
Traditional organizational systems are fairly strict, dividing workers into groups based on one or
more of the following criteria: Functions, Products, Processes, Customers, and Regions(Needle
& Burns, 2010).
Contemporary and team structures are two further forms of corporate structures. These
arrangements are more adaptable than traditional structures, allowing managers to shift people as
needed to adjust to changing working conditions. Project-based businesses, such as software and
service businesses, would benefit from these more adaptable organizational models (Keyder &
Keyder, 1981).
A typical manufacturing business department structure would include three departments: finance,
operations, and marketing. A vice president would be in charge of each of these divisions and
report to the company president, who is in charge of all three divisions and usually sits at the top
of the manufacturing business's organizational structure (Feizpour & Ramazani, 2017).
1.2 Unilever and Manufacturing Industry
The corporate structure of Unilever is responsible for guaranteeing enough support for product
innovation across the company's global operations. The architecture that outlines the layout and
procedures used to develop and interconnect various organizational components, such as offices
and teams, is known as a company's organizational structure or corporate structure. The
organizational structure of Unilever varies in response to developments in the consumer products
sector and the worldwide market (Clay, 2005). Currently, the corporation has a system in place
that meets corporate demands for managing product kinds all over the world. Unilever, as a
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