Global Strategic Management: Business Strategies, Tools, and Planning for Unilever

This report discusses the business strategies, tools, and planning used by Unilever in global strategic management. It includes an analysis of the internal and external environment affecting the business, including the use of Porter's 5 Forces and BCG Matrix. The report also covers the company's marketing mix, corporate strategies, and recommendations for future growth.

Global Strategic
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Business strategies..................................................................................................................1
Problems that manage by business framework......................................................................3
Strategic Tools........................................................................................................................5
Porter's 5 Forces:-...................................................................................................................5
Strategic Planning...................................................................................................................6
Level of strategy.....................................................................................................................7
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Global strategic management makes a business organisation to take advantages in a
global market. It includes all the misleading and conflicting data and other which is running and
being valued globally. The chosen UK based company for this report is uni liver which was
founded on 2nd September 1929. it was established by the manager of the British soap maker
lever brothers and Dutch margarine producer margarine Unie. The headquarter of uni liver is
situated in London, UK. Alan Joep was appointed as CEO of the uni liver in January in 2019.
The CEO of Unilever is famous for running world's biggest and most diverse UK based company
and the company serving 3.4 billion people every day. In this report all the business strategies
and plans implemented by the Unilever is going to be discussed. The analysis of the internal and
external environment affecting the business will be also discussed. This report will also let reader
know about the applicability of BCG matrix to make suitable suggestion for an organisation in
order to make advantages.
MAIN BODY
Business strategies
Marketing mix
 Product : Unilever is the UK based company who provides service in a manner to hold
strong brand. The main goal of the company is to provide quality beauty and personal
care products, food and refreshment and home care care products inn order to make
customer belief and make profit. Beauty and personal care segment is making more profit
but recently, refreshment and food segment is also growing rapidly. The beauty products
do not contain harmful chemicals so they enhance the customer appearance without
affecting their skin. These products are really helpful to boost customer self-esteem and
improve the mood too. Food items of Unilever are nutritious fair and sustainable. The
food items are certified to FSSC 22000.
 Price: The price of food items and beauty products of Unilever are so reasonable and
easily available in the market. The Unilever is providing the service globally and
everyone around the globe may use the products and appreciates the quality (Andersen,
Torp, and Linder, eds., 2019).
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 Place: Unilever products can be purchased by anyone globally and can take advantages
of them. Price is not the barrier which comes in way to purchase the products. Unilever
also advertise the launching products to make customer know about the use and benefits
in order to achieve profit. The customers purchase the products because of it's good
quality and reasonable price. Since 1929, Unilever has been a trustworthy company and
thus has build up the trust of the customers.
 Promotion: Unilever is the most popular and trustworthy UK base company which is
known for its beauty and home care products. Recently, its food and refreshment items
are also growing rapidly. As Unilever is a leading global consumer goods company it
advertise the advantages of the products using many platforms such as Instagram pages,
Facebook, TV and others. Unilever is company which meets the need of nutrition,
personal care and hygiene and maintains its quality. A number of celebrities are
sponsored foe advertise the company on different channel and websites. Unilever also
occasionally applies sales promotion like product bundles and discounts. Unilever
advertisement spends increased 1% to 4700 corer. Unilever makes strategies such good
quality but less price in order to attract the customers towards the products (Arıcıoğlu,
and Yiğitol, 2019).
Corporate strategies
Ansoff matrix
 Product development: The company is making the products available online so the
product can be easily delivered to customer door step. There is no hassle of exchange as
online transaction is accessible. The company make changes to the products in order to
meet the customer requirements and also make new products that is perfect in accordance
with the preferences of users.
 Diversification: Unilever is a international organisation and has diversified its products.
It deals with food and personal care products as its core business and make profits.
Diversification strategy implemented by Unilever is to open new markets with the
availability of new and unique products in order to make profit. Everyone works for
Unilever is treated fairly and no discrimination is there while working and that is how all
get fair access to opportunities. Unilever makes economic opportunity and it is the most
crucial way to build an inclusive world (Bénet, Deville, and Naro, 2019).
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 Market penetration: To create the positive appearance of the Unilever the top leaders of
the company participates in social functions. The market penetration strategy used by the
company is to expand their customer base in a market they are already in. market
penetration strategy used by the company like pricing approach, promotion planning and
product innovation and these strategies make Unilever brand succeed in the international
market.
 Market expansion: the company attract customers by offering broad range of products
and online services. The companies uses different payment regulations for expanding the
business model. Making incentives is helpful for earning profits for the company.
Problems that manage by business framework
External analysis: This is all related to the opportunities and difficulties which are associated
with the business, fluctuation in divisions and advancement. PEST analysis is done to evaluate
the capacity and strategy of CEO of the company to deal with different challenges and
difficulties. By the help of external analysis the difference between opportunities and challenges
can be identified (Camillo, and Camillo, 2019).
the variables of PEST analysis that are relevant to Unilever are mentioned below:
 Political: In UK Unilever is the biggest organisation serving for food and personal care
but Unilever do not sponsor or support any candidate or any political party. There were
no political contribution made to the company in 2021. Employees working under
Unilever may offer support and may also fund to political groups in a personal capacity.
 Economic: Unilever has huge number of employment in UK and in other countries. It
contributes to the progress of the country economy and because of its good quality
customer may not choose other organisations over Unilever for the beauty and personal
care products. It ears profit by providing good quality service at reasonable price
(D’Cruz, 2018).
 Social: Unilever has launched its product to meat with the customer requirements and
these products are easily available in the market. Unilever is the most successful
organisation running globally with a strong historical promises to corporate social
responsibility. Unilever need to focus on their social responsibility which helps the
company to improve their performance and achieve their target. Unilever need to launch
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some eco- friendly product to make the environment pollution free. Unilever is also
assaulting the users with the number of advertisement. Technological: in united kingdom the technological environment is evolving
continuously. The company need to use advanced technologies to have better outcome
and achieve profits. Since the customers requirements are continuously changing
Unilever need to take innovative steps to make customer attract towards the products
(Dhir, 2019).
Internal analysis
During the internal analysis all the resources, infrastructure and processes and regularly
analysed at the organisational level. It has a product type cross sectional infrastructure. Unilever
has a specific division for personal and beauty products where as home products are produced at
another division. The CEO of Unilever has conducted a SWOT analysis for how he will deal
with complex situations at organisation.
Strengths:
 The organisation has a strong brand
name, which is crucial for the
development of the company and make
it survive in the global market which is
highly competitive. The organisation has build up the trust
because of its good quality and
uniqueness.
Weaknesses:
 organisation has not launched natural or
plant based products yet which are in
demand. Company need to produce
plant based products to meet the
customer requirements.
 The most crucial weakness of the
company is that it operates in an uber
competitive market and also have
confusing services policy. Product
limitation is also the biggest limitation.
Opportunities:
 since COVID Unilever is taking care of
environmental factors so now it has an
opportunities that it can take
advantages.
Threats:
 Unilever has threats like tough
competitive rivalry, product limitation
and increasing popularity of retailers
 customers are looking for local
products because they are available
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 Unilever has a opportunity to produce
herbal products because herbal
products are in demand as they do not
make any harm on skin.
with same ingredients at reasonable
price.
Strategic Tools
 Porter’s Three Generic strategies: Unilever uses genetic strategy such as broad
differentiation for competitive profit. The focal point of this strategy is its force on
feature that make Unilever products stand out against other competitors for the survival
(Hitt, Ireland, and Hoskisson, 2019).
 Cost leadership strategy: Unilever is a company who is focusing on making strategies
to become the cheapest manufacturer inn order to achieve customer attention and make
profit. The CEO of unilever may take competitive profit by utilizing the production cost
and decrease the the rates.
 Differentiation strategy: The Unilever is implementing the strategy by launching unique
products in the market to make customer come and buy those products in order to make
profits. It make organisation stand in such competitive global market.
 Focus strategy: Focus strategy helps to limit the competitors and helps to earn profits.
The CEO of Unilever will the great impact by creating productive partnership in all their
targeted market. When Unilever regulate the strategy, it will witness the better impact by
making productive partnership in all the its aimed market. It will minimize its
competitors. According to porter's 3 usual plan, Unilever regulate the price of leadership
application to do positive change at Unilever by minimizing the price related with the
company functional activity. This approach gives permission to the national organisation
to decrease cost in order to providing the product to a international market (Nagel, and
Aviles, 2021).
 Integration strategy: The CEO of Unilever regulated a horizontal integration application
to combine or leverage with company functioning at a comparative scale in their related
filed. Unilever CEO has made a better addition to his company strategy by widening
business solutions, decreasing competition and making profits. CEO of Unilever, for
instance, created standard economies, increase their customer, energetic leadership in
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their business, and enhance their new customer base by adding different competitive
business.
Porter's 5 Forces:-
The 5 forces of Porter model ideal techniques for finding and improving a company
competitiveness and their environments. In context to Unilever, five forces of Porter Model was
used to evaluate all the performance and the whole challenging market in the respective sector.
Unilever are evaluating by the 5 competitive forces of the Porters Model:
Competitive rivalry: In the business of beauty products and food products, a batch of companies
have captured a huge parts of the economy like as L' Oréal, P&G and so on. However, they have
the upper hand in the sector of beauty products and they are competing directly.
Threat of substitution: when there is a brand like L' Oreal or an organisation with like wise
products came into the market then the organisation profitability falls. L'Oreal, Estée
Lauder,P&G ,Beiersdorf, Shiseiddo and other substitution like this which made cosmetic
products posses a vital threat of Unilever being substituted (Newburry, Deephouse, and
Gardberg, 2019).
Supplier bargaining power: In the industry of beauty products, the supplier s are important
elements which will affects the inclusion of the beauty products to an organisation direct
marketing offering. The sellers with the assist of the technical help use to enhance costs in the
beauty products service marketplace. The organisation does not has the bargaining capabilities as
comparable to their service user and this will has the negative impact on its productivity and
profit.
Buyers' negotiating power: The buyers may be difficult to please as they desire to gain the best
possible service or product at the lowest possible costs. The company who is involve in the
beauty product marketing must launched some new products due to quickly occurring changes in
customer plan. The buyers generally demand special deals and discounts on the products.
New entrant threat: In the market of the beauty product, at the time when the new competitors
introduced into the field they bring innovation and creativity with them and it forces the Unilever
to improved their services and decrease their prices. However, the new competitor faced the high
brand manufacturing price, have to put money into capital intensive technology and so on.
Strategic Planning
BCG Matrix:
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 Cash cows: In this, the organisation is having the large market area but they are
developing at slow rate so this is known as a cash cows. All the beauty products are
generally well settled business in their respective sector. As the recognised sector is
totally matured and the manufacture is investing extra amount with the objective of
making profit at faster rate (Nik Abdullah, 2018).
 Stars: These are the companies who have manage their growth with large market space
in there respective area. They generally preserve the field positioning and also making
new chances for the same. In case to Unilever must have the optimum investment with
the objective of enhancing sustainability and profitability in the beauty market.
 Question marks: These are the organisations who is having having high growth small
and customer base in the market. They generally point out the disadvantages of the
organisation and in which they required to need huge change in the market. Unilever
must evaluates that the questions mark may be the effective star of Dog. When the
organisation gain the ability to replace its corporation surrounding the procurement of the
the technology or new machine. For this, talented workers can manage the need of the
business and do the required changing to them so that they may fall in the class of star
products.
 Unilever must concentrate on the whole growth of the business by developing its
products in order to achieve customer attention and make profit by attracting them
towards the product.
 Dogs: It is the low-growth products who commonly compete with other products in a
particular market. also, if the profit gained by the organisation is not more then Unilever.
Level of strategy
There are Mckinsey 7s model which is being used by the Unilever in order to evaluate the
level of strategy of organisation through which within the given time period corrective action can
be taken and make sure the good practices in the organisation. The 7 factors of Mckinsey model
which must considered by the organisation through which company can make sure regular
improvement.
 Strategy: This is made by the organisation, it is blueprint of the company's action plan
which assist that how the whole work or is being managed and considered in any
company. In generally, this ensure the dissemination and development of the model of
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business which also increase the visibility of functioning of Unilever and follow with the
mentioned actions and obligation.
 Structure: In this, by obeying the flat organisational structure in which whole workers
have favourable environment of working & they can task to nay of the manager directly
as well, Unilever is functioning its business. Service user feel accredited as they do have
the higher availability with the few barriers between them with the highest level
management. In addition, this structure gives permission to the Unilever for quicker their
decision making method and increase the whole work engagement with the organisation.
 System: In this, Unilever generally evaluate the regular scheduling by managing the daily
report. The groups of this would be performed by the information conversation and
observation. On the basis of performance, workers get the feedback therefore, they can
perform better in their given job responsibilities (Shanmuganathan, 2018).
 Shared values: Unilever is working for make sure the good environment and also
distributing its value to their workers in number of ways. The organisation is functioning
its business in diverse environment with the eradication of discrimination among the
workers. Facebook is encouraging innovation by giving freedom to the individual who
can take their decisions by own. Lastly, they are getting full support from its supervisors
as well.
Style: In this consideration, Facebook is using participative leadership style in which the
employees can give their valuable feedback and suggestion to the management. This
helps in the effective and innovation working within the company.
Staff: Facebook is having the large number of employees across the world. Employees
for the multiple job are being recruited from local and global countries. Employees also
get the on-job training for sharpening their skill for the better working.
Skills: Facebook is emphasising on the development of the employees with their skills
and abilities. They are performing seminars for the personal development for its
personnel both internal and other side run.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Mark Zuckerberg is giving the consideration that all the values of the company must be
monitored properly. This is recommending to understanding the changing market dynamics by
which they can make the required changed within the organisation appropriately.
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As per the data protection within UK, it is illegal for company to use the personal information of
the client to outsourcing its consent. Hence Mark Zuckerberg must conscious about the privacy
policy. This strategy may lead the company in legal problem and harm the brand positioning and
its image.
This is being reported by Mark Zuckerberg that they are using strategies to influence more
individual to use Facebook. As move people are indulged to use Instagram, Snap Chat and
WhatsApp. But Facebook has acquired WhatsApp and Instagram. The company must take the
new opportunity to bring new products and effective marketing strategies (Wirtz, Müller, and
Weyerer, 2021).
CONCLUSION
In the above report it has been summarised that the companies can use the global strategic
management which will help in to take the advantage of the global competition possibilities. To
get the better understanding of their corporate settings, a successful manager create methods and
software. To understand the complexity of the governmental institutions, stakeholders, and
changing needs helps management in successfully allocating funds to sustain and expand their
firms.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Andersen, T.J., Torp, S. and Linder, S. eds., 2019. Strategic Responsiveness and Adaptive
Organizations: New Research Frontiers in International Strategic Management. Emerald
Group Publishing.
Arıcıoğlu, M.A. and Yiğitol, B., 2019. Paradigm Change in Strategic Management. In Handbook
of Research on Managerial Thinking in Global Business Economics (pp. 179-195). IGI
Global.
Bénet, N., Deville, A. and Naro, G., 2019. BSC inside a strategic management control
package. Journal of applied accounting research.
Camillo, I.C. and Camillo, A.A., 2019. Strategic Managerial Communication in the Digital Era:
Implications for Ethical-Unethical Behavior. In Handbook of Research on Strategic
Communication, Leadership, and Conflict Management in Modern Organizations (pp. 360-
389). IGI Global.
D’Cruz, J.R., 2018. Strategic Management of Subsidiaries 1. In Managing the multinational
subsidiary (pp. 75-89). Routledge.
Dhir, S., 2019. Cases in Strategic Management: A Flexibility Perspective. Springer.
Hitt, M.A., Ireland, R.D. and Hoskisson, R.E., 2019. Strategic management: Concepts and cases:
Competitiveness and globalization. Cengage Learning.
Nagel, R. and Aviles, C., 2021. The impact of corporate bankruptcy on strategic management:
Using a textual analysis approach to analyze executives’ opinions. Journal of Indian
Business Research.
Newburry, W., Deephouse, D.L. and Gardberg, N.A., 2019. Global aspects of reputation and
strategic management. In Global aspects of reputation and strategic management. Emerald
Publishing Limited.
Nik Abdullah, N.H., 2018. The influence of dynamic capabilities on strategic management
accounting practices and its effect on value creation in Government Linked Companies.
Shanmuganathan, M., 2018. Corporate governance relationship with strategic management: a
longitudinal case analysis of RELX Group (Elsevier). International Journal of Comparative
Management, 1(3), pp.273-294.
Wirtz, B.W., Müller, W.M. and Weyerer, J.C., 2021. Digital pandemic response systems: a
strategic management framework against Covid-19. International Journal of Public
Administration, 44(11-12), pp.896-906.
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