Managing a Successful Business Project: Responding to Equality and Diversity Issues at Unilever

This research study focuses on how Unilever, a British Dutch consumer goods company, responds to issues related to equality and diversity at the workplace. It explores the impact of workplace equality and diversity on employee productivity and aims to find solutions for gender pay gap, sexual harassment, and gender divide in leadership. The study includes a project management plan, work breakdown structure, and Gantt chart. The research data is analyzed using appropriate tools and techniques.

Managing a Successful
Business Project

TOPIC
“How organisation responded to current issues faced due to equality as well as diversity
at workplace such as gender pay gap, sexual harassment, difference in leadership based on
gender.” A study on Unilever.
INTRODUCTION
For managing a successful organisation at international level a business needs to recruit
many individual's who consists to the various cultures, nations as well as they all have various
sets of behaviour and values which creates workforce diversity in an organisation (Allaoui,
2019). Equality refers to the term in which all individual's are treating equally or can say that
there is no discrimination on the behalf of their gender, caste etc. Which helps facilitating equal
opportunities for growth as well as development. In addition, diversity can assist in creating
more innovation in the products as well as services as all individual have unique ideas and
concepts. Workplace equality and diversity assists in responding towards the many challenges
that are currently faced by a company which includes sexual harassment, gender pay gap and
gender divide in leadership. In this report Unilever is chosen which is a British Dutch
transnational consumer good company which headquartered in London, UK and Rotterdam,
Netherlands. Under this research study about the research aims and objectives that should be
studied in this report along with the preparation of a project management plan and WBS using a
Gantt chart in order to track the activities. Moreover, conduct a small scale research and analyse
or interpreted them appropriately as well as produce recommendations and reflection on entire
project research report.
TASK 1
P1 Devise project aims and objectives.
Due to the increment in globalisation and integration of businesses the demand of
workplace equality and diversity is increasing for growth and success of an organisation
(Christian, 2019). This will helps Unilever's in optimising the workers potentiality through
provides motivation to them that are required for achieving the organisational goals as well as
objectives within a specified period of time.
AIM:
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“To find out how an organisation responds to issues related to the equality and diversity
at working premises so that employee's productivity can be improved by giving them equal
opportunity which creates healthy competition among them.”
Objectives:
 To form a broad understanding towards the concept of Unilever's workplace equality and
diversity.
 To define the influences of diversity on the performance of Unilever's manpower.
 To ascertain ways and methods through which issues related to gender pay gap, gender
divide rule in leadership as well as sexual harassment can be solved by an organisation.
Questions:
 What is the meaning of equality and diversity at workplace?
 How can the diversity influence the performance of Unilever's workers?
 What kind of strategies and ways can be adopted by the company in order to minimise
the influences of workplace equality and diversity?
P2 Produce a project management plan.
Project management plan: It is outlined as a written representation that helps to guide in
implementing and monitoring every stages of the project. This plan is developed in order to
know about the cost, scope, time, resources, risk etc. can be determined for accomplishing the
organisational objectives. The respective elements of project management plan are discussed
below: Scope: It has a wide scope for planning and developing appropriate strategies which
assists in bringing diversity and equality at workplace as well as serves more chances in
future also. Investigators realise the entire concept and value of equality and diversity that
are useful for future investigation (Dhanraj, 2015). Whereas, Unilever will be capable to
apply effective strategies in order to live long in the marketplace. Cost: This is defined as an essential aspects as it involves the estimation of overall
projects and its activities which is to be required in attaining goals and objectives of
company. Unilever assign £60000 for executing several activities like new assets
investment, changes implementation, fulfilling the needs of resources, employees training
and development program and for research and development activity which are necessary
for the completion of project according to the research data. Whereas, investigator
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approximate actual cost for managing investigation in effective manner as well as gather
valuable informations as they needed £8000. Quality: It is required while conducting research activities as that assists in collecting
precious and reliable information regarding a specific topic (Erickson, 2014). researchers
exercise qualitative and quantitative methods for this whereas, project manager of
Unilever gets benefit of correct data for executing project activities within a specified
time period. Resources: A project needs several resources such as human, technological and financial
which aids in developing their employees towards the attainment of organizational goals.
Project manager of Unilever needs money, latest technologies, efforts and planned
schedule as well for gratifying the needs of customers. Whereas, investigators requires
fund, time, fast speed of internet connection etc. to gather reliable data. Time: Investigator would needed 7 weeks time for gathering actual data in a particular
time period. Whereas, company requires 2 months for adopting strategies as well as
initiatives in a successful manner (Henry, 2014). Risk: It is termed as a basic aspects which happens while performing project activities.
investigators may face many risks such as collection of unsuitable data and sample size
that leads in delay in performance. Whereas, Unilever's manager can not enforced
strategies effectively due to the imprecise data so it develops negative workplace.
 Communication: To take diversity and equality at working environment communication
is needed to formulate appropriate strategies in order to utilise effectively to create
equality and diversity workplace. Researchers usage emails as well as telephones for
conveying with clients and team members (Honeyman, 2019). Whereas, Unilever can
adopt oral and written form of communication to facilitate an equal opportunities for
decision making as well as acquire many suggestions of workers.
P3 Work break down structure and Gantt chart.
Work breakdown structure: It is an organised approach that assists company for
undertaking several project activities. It is termed as a deliverable which assist an organisation to
divide the whole project into small and manageable sections. This kind of work arrange in a
hierarchical structure in accordance to the assigned to team members who are liable to undertake
whole project (Kassen, 2018). This will help in defining the entire project activities into
3

manageable manner that will aid them to complete work without any kind of delays. For this,
investigator gets benefit for distributing whole project into small tasks as well as complete all
activities within the time-frame.
Gantt chart: It is typically known as a graphical presentation through that all events or
activities are listed along with the time period in order to be completed tasks on time. It can be
represented on mainly two axis like X and Y as vertical axis consider tasks and activities and on
horizontal axis specific timing are taken in which all activities have to be completed. As
researcher will determine all activities which they have to be considered at a time of conducting
research with the specific time intervals (King, 2018). This will assist them for conducting
research in an appropriate manner as well as redundancy related to task can be avoided by
preparing lists in advance. This helps in minimising the chances of confusion as proper
sequencing of activities will be determined which are required for performing activities.
4

TASK 2
P4 Conduct small scale research.
Investigation defined as a systematic process that can be used by the investigator to
gather essential subject matter about a particular topic which will spring its contribution in
responding towards the challenges or in formulating new concepts and applications. There are
several tools and techniques that can be exercised by investigator to owed, explain as well as
measure information in order to form best decision for accomplishing investigation aims and
objectives.
Quantitative research method: Investigator collects informations that is in quantifiable
form as it is observable as well as numerical in nature. This kind of research method is more
reliable, appropriate and valuable as it provides effective conclusion towards the research
(Kordova, 2019). Investigator uses several tools and techniques of statistical and mathematical
calculations in order to conclude the research questions effectively. As in this research,
questionnaire is chosen for collecting informations.
Qualitative method of research: In this, investigator focuses on open ending discourse
to collect elaborated and reliable informations towards the behaviour and perception of various
answerers that have been determined by the researchers itself. Hereby, informations are hardly
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represent in a tabular and graphical presentation. Many resources can be effectively utilised such
as surveys, interview and observations as well.
Sources of data collection:
Primary research: This source of gathering information facilitate more applicable as
well as first hand information is collected by investigator personally through using interview,
survey, questionnaire and so forth but this kind of source is more time consuming as well as
expensive to use (Larson, 2016).
Secondary research: Data is gathered by the researcher has already exist in the market
as provided by some other researcher after conducting research activity. Hereby, the collected
information may be sometimes outdated and based on the views and perception of other people.
In this, journals, magazines, online websites as well as publications etc. are included that can be
utilized by investigator while performing research activity.
Sampling: It refers to an activity that has used by investigator to select the number of
answerers that are needed to undertake research activity and to collect accurate and reliable
information as well as attain objectives of research effectively. The sample size is ascertain on
the basis of shared attributes of different population (Ng, 2017). As researcher is adopting non-
random sampling method as well as select a sample size of 30 to gather appropriate data.
Questionnaire
Quantitative questions
Q1) Do you understand about the equality as well as diversity at working premises?
a) Agree
b) Disagree
Q2) What is the value and benefit of workplace equality and diversity?
a) Competitiveness of business raise
b) Gain productiveness
c) Equal opportunities
Q3) What kind of threat occurs due to the diverse workforce in Unilever's?
a) Increased group-ism
b) Communication obstacles
c) Enhanced conflicts
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Q4) What type of issue faced by Unilever's if there is inequality at workplace?
a) Decrement in productiveness
b) Increase in jealousy
c) Demotivation
Q5) Do these concepts assist company to accomplish its objectives?
a) Yes
b) No
Q6) Why is the importance of workplace diversity?
a) Pool of varied ideas
b) Innovations rise
Q7) What type of strategy for increasing workplace equality?
a) Training and development programmes
b) Performance appraisal
c) Inspiriting equal participation
Qualitative questions
Q8) What are the issues related to equality and diversity at Unilever?
a) Increase in gender pay gap
b) Sexual harassment
c) Gender divide in leadership
Q9) Methods through which these challenges can be dealt effectively?
a) Increasing women empowerment
b) Managers awareness about these problems
c) Quick response
Q10) Any suggestions?
TASK 3
P5 Analyse research and data by using appropriate tools.
Theme 1: Understanding about the concept of equality and diversity at working premises.
Q1) Do you understand about the concept of equality and diversity at
working premises?
Frequency
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a) Agree 20
b) Disagree 10
20
10
a) Agree
b) Disagree
Interpretation: From the above data interpretation and chart it has been analysed that out of the
total 30 respondents, 20 answerers are in favour of that they know about the concept of equality
and diversity at workplace. Whereas 10 are disagree on that question as they don't understand
about the workplace equality as well as diversity.
Theme 2: Value and benefit of these concepts.
Q2) What is the value and benefit of these concepts? Frequency
a) Competitiveness of business raise 10
b) Gain productiveness 12
c) Equal opportunities 8
8

10
12
8
a) Competitiveness of
business raise
b) Gain productiveness
c) Equal opportunities
Interpretation: It has been interpreted from the above table and graph that out of the 30
respondents, 12 are in favour of that equality and diversity at working environment helps in
increasing the productiveness, 10 considers that it will helps in increasing the competitiveness
and rest of the respondents thinks that it will help in providing equal opportunities to all.
Theme 3: Threat occurs due to the diverse workforce in Unilever's.
Q3) What kind of threat occurs due to the diverse workforce in Unilever's? Frequency
a) Increased group-ism 16
b) Communication barriers 6
c) Increased conflicts 8
9

16
6
8
a) Increased group-ism
b) Communication barriers
c) Increased conflicts
Interpretation: It has been viewed from the above presentation that out of 30 answerers 16
believes that due to the diverse manpower the activity of group-ism is increased. 8 thinks that
diverse workforce increases the conflicts among individual's and remaining consider that it
creates some kind of communication obstacles. (Northouse, 2017).
Theme 4: Issue faced by Unilever's if there is no equality at working environment.
Q4) What type of issue faced by Unilever's if there is no equality at working
environment?
Frequency
a) Decrement in productivity 14
b) Increase in jealousy 5
c) Demotivation 11
10

14
5
11
a) Decrement in productivity
b) Increase in jealousy
c) Demotivation
Interpretation: It has been interpreted from the above research data that out of the 30
respondents, 14 consider that if Unilever's has inequality at their working environment then they
face issue related to the decrement in productivity. Whereas, 11 thinks that it results in employee
demotivation and remaining is in the favour of raise in jealousy among employees due to the
inequality.
Theme 5: Concepts assist company to accomplish its objectives.
Q5) Do these concepts assist company to accomplish its objectives? Frequency
a) Yes 27
b) No 3
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27
3
a) Yes
b) No
Interpretation: It has been analysed from the above graphical presentation that out of 30
respondents, 27 are in favour of that equality and diversity at working premises helps in
accomplishing the Unilever's objectives. Whereas, remaining 3 thinks that it is not helpful in
achieving the objectives of business.
Theme 6: Importance of workplace diversity.
Q6) Why is the importance of workplace diversity? Frequency
a) Pool of varied ideas 17
b) Innovations rise 13
12

17
13
a) Pool of varied ideas
b) Innovations rise
Interpretation: It has been interpreted from the above chart that out of the 30 respondents, 17
thinks that diversity at working environment assist in increasing the pool of different ideas and
concepts which helps in increasing the company's productivity. Whereas, 13 answerers considers
that it increases the new innovations (Ozturk, 2016).
Theme 7: Strategy for increasing workplace equality.
Q7) What type of strategy for increasing workplace equality? Frequency
a) Training and development programmes 12
b) Performance appraisal 10
c) Inspiriting equal participation 8
13

12
10
8
a) Training and development
programmes
b) Performance appraisal
c) Inspiriting equal participation
Interpretation: From the above interpretation it has been cleared that out of the 30 respondents,
12 thinks that a company Unilever's needs to adopts training and development programmes as a
strategy that helps in increasing the equality at working environment. Whereas, 10 believes that
performance appraisals is more helpful for that and remaining 8 considers that in order to
increase the workplace equality a company requires to encourage equal participation of all
members.
Q8) What are the issues related to equality
and diversity at Unilever?
Explanation
a) Increase in gender pay gap It is related to that kind of situation in which a
company make differences in men and
women in fact both are performing same kind
of work and have similar form of skills as
well as talent.
b) Sexual harassment It is associated with the uninvited sexual
behaviour which may impacts negatively on
employees as they all feel intimidated,
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offended and embarrassed (Rao, 2018).
c) Gender divide in leadership It is related to the conditions in which a
company gives more emphasise on the
preference of male leaders for accomplishing
the research objectives. This will impacts
negative effect on female leaders as they feel
worthless presence in an organisation.
Q9) Methods through which these
challenges can be dealt effectively?
Explanation
a) Increasing women empowerment Employers needs to give their emphasise on
empowering women by taking initiatives in
conducting several programs in that they can
snap priority to women at working premises in
order to create a healthy environment of
workplace within the organisation by giving
balanced treatment to all personal.
b) Managers awareness about these problems For enhancing the employees motivation or
encouragement it is necessary for leader to
must give equal chances to all employees
irrespective of their abilities, talent as well as
qualifications (Taylor, 2015).
c) Quick response Manager needs to speedy response to these
issues so that all struggles can be get rid of and
company can maintained its growth as well as
success for a longer time period.
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P6 Communicate appropriate recommendations.
For managing a business in a successful manner a company Unilever needs to adopt
equality as well as diversity at their working environment in order to increase employees
productivity as well as motivate them towards the work performance efficiency. It can be
developed through facilitating equal opportunities to all for growing and developing. This will
help in reducing the workplace conflicts among personnels that includes distinct working styles
of all, communication barriers etc. that are raised due to the company's diverse manpower
(Vuorinen, 2019). Whereas, equality assists in creating a safe as well as friendly environment of
working premises thus increasing employees performance and increase Unilever's competitive
position in the market by gaining competitive edge. There are some kind of recommendations for
Unilever that are makes on the basis of above research such as follows:
 Unilever should need to promote comprehensive working environment so that entire staff
of the company can involved in the decision-making procedure that assists in making
appropriate decisions.
 The company should require to promote group activities in order to encourage the
participation of individual as a team that assists in employee engagement and better
achievement of organisational objectives.
 Unilever should adopt performance appraisals that can assist workers for properly
utilisation of individual's potentiality for completing tasks as well as attaining company's
objectives within the specified period of time.
TASK 4
P7 Provide reflection.
I am very thankful to all who gives me an opportunity to conduct a research on well
known organisation such as Unilever. In this, firstly I set research aims and objectives on a
specific topic such as “How organisation responded to current issues faced due to equality and
diversity at working environment such as gender pay gap, difference in leadership based on
gender, sexual harassment.” it was really interesting as I was able to apply my own skills as well
as knowledge to identify the influences of workplace equality and diversity and find out many
ways for eliminating the impacts of that as well.
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As a result of this project a company applied several strategies that responds towards the
many issues like gender pay gap, sexual harassment as well as gender divide in leadership in
order to increase employees productivity and potentiality. This research project aided me a lot in
sharpening my research skill that can help in providing future research chances for a
multinational or large companies.
Moreover, I found improvements in several skills such as interpersonal, problem solving
as well as decision-making as well while I conduct research. At the same time, I faced many
challenges or threats such as deficiency of time and proper utilisation of resources that I
effectively dealt by designing a project development plan, using WBS and Gantt chart that
helped me a lot in accomplishing research objectives successfully.
CONCLUSION
From the preceding investigation it has been summarised that workplace equality and
diversity is needed by an organisation because all individual belongs to the various religions,
cultures and nations and have specific sets of skills as well as ideas that can work in harmony as
well as resolved all conflicts in an effective way. As equality can aid in developing employees
potentiality as well as productivity as they can be encouraged if they all get same chances to
develop. In addition, to resolve the issues some strategic decisions or strategies can be
formulated such as eliminating discrimination can assist in responding divide gender in
leadership issue, performance appraisals for resolving gender pay gap and women empowerment
for dealing with the sexual harassment issue. This will assist the business in strengthening their
image as well as effectively and efficiently accomplish organisational goals and objectives.
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REFERENCES
Books & Journals
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planning in business transformation projects. The Journal of Modern Project
Management. 7(1).
Christian, K. A., 2019. A Qualitative Multiple Case Study of Small Business Leaders'
Implementation of Successful Business Continuity Planning (Doctoral dissertation,
Northcentral University).
Dhanraj, J.S., 2015. Right to life is the fundamental right of human being with reference to
article 21 of the constitution of India A critical study.
Erickson, W.A and et. al., 2014. The employment environment: Employer perspectives, policies,
and practices regarding the employment of persons with disabilities. Rehabilitation
Counseling Bulletin. 57(4). pp.195-208.
Henry, A. D. And et. al., 2014. Employer-recommended strategies to increase opportunities for
people with disabilities. Journal of vocational Rehabilitation. 41(3). pp.237-248.
Honeyman, R. and Jana, T., 2019. The B Corp Handbook: How You Can Use Business as a
Force for Good. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.s.
Kassen, M., 2018. Adopting and managing open data: Stakeholder perspectives, challenges and
policy recommendations. Aslib Journal of Information Management. 70(5). pp.518-
537.
King, N., Horrocks, C. and Brooks, J., 2018. Interviews in qualitative research. SAGE
Publications Limited.
Kordova, S., Katz, E. and Frank, M., 2019. Managing development projects—The partnership
between project managers and systems engineers. Systems Engineering. 22(3). pp.227-
242.
Larson, D. and Chang, V., 2016. A review and future direction of agile, business intelligence,
analytics and data science. International Journal of Information Management. 36(5).
pp.700-710.
Ng, E. and Rumens, N., 2017. Diversity and inclusion for LGBT workers: Current issues and
new horizons for research. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences. 34(2). pp.109-
120.
Northouse, P. G., 2017. Introduction to leadership: Concepts and practice. Sage Publications.
Ozturk, M.B. and Tatli, A., 2016. Gender identity inclusion in the workplace: broadening
diversity management research and practice through the case of transgender employees
in the UK. The International Journal of Human Resource Management . 27(8). pp.781-
802.
Rao, T. and Roberts, N. S., 2018. Voices of women of colour: Dreaming of an inclusive outdoor
leadership environment. In The Palgrave International Handbook of Women and
Outdoor Learning (pp. 815-835). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Taylor, S.J., Bogdan, R. and DeVault, M., 2015. Introduction to qualitative research methods: A
guidebook and resource. John Wiley & Sons.
Vuorinen, L. and Martinsuo, M. M., 2019. Lifecycle view of managing different changes in
projects. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business. 12(1). pp.120-143.
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APPENDIX I
Template for evidence collection to be attached with the report by the learner:
Project Logbook for the chosen organisation:
Name of the learner: Name of the Supervisor:
Project Title: How do companies
respond to challenges faced due to
equality and diversity at workplace
like gender pay gap, sexual
harassment, difference in leadership
based on gender etc. so that the
productivity of workers can be
increased and healthy competition in
workplace can be established. A
study on Aston Martin Lagonda
Global Holdings plc.
Date:
Update of weekly research/ tasks
achieved (Account for a minimum of
six weeks with dates)
 What have you completed?
 Did you fulfil Task
requirements?
 Are you on track and within
deadlines set?
 Did you need to make any
changes to your project
management plan?
Comments
I have attained my investigation on issues which are
being featured in an organisation due to the
workplace equality as well as diversity.
Yes
Yes
No
19

Any risks and / or issues identified?
 Did you identify risks/issues
with a lack of skills required
for undertaking research
tasks?
 Did you identify any
additional risks/issues that
have an impact on the project
management plan?
Yes, I faced problems related to lack of time and
improper utilisation of resources which were
constricted along with the monetary trouble.
No
Problems encountered
 What barriers did you face?
 How did you overcome them?
I faced technical barrier that was delay in my some
kind of work performance.
Me and my team member did over time so that the
project that got slow can be accomplished within time.
New Ideas and change of project
direction
I could have used 1 extra week to conduct this research
and activities in an effective way.
What Have I learnt about myself this
week? How did I feel when I had to
deal with tasks/problems?
 Did I find it useful to
complete the tasks? How well have I performed?
What did I contribute?
I was fevered to do my investigation project on such
an interesting title.
Yes
I utilized my ability as effectively as achievable so
that the piece of work could be achieved within
20

 What can I improve on next
week?
 How might this learning
apply in the future?
time-frame.
It has enhanced my investigation ability and also I
formed a lot ideas regarding this task that can help
me in getting future undertakings.
Tasks planned for next week Which tasks are priority?
 Have you set aside sufficient
time for completion?
Accumulation of reliable and valuable information
as well as their representation in an appropriate
way is my priority.
Yes
Project plan status to date (on,
ahead, behind)
Supervisor comments to address
Signature of the Supervisor and date:
APPENDIX II
Template for Performance Review to be attached with the report by the learner:
 What was the Project supposed to accomplish?
The project was aimed at finding the solution to “How organisation responded to current
issues faced due to equality as well as diversity at workplace such as gender pay gap,
sexual harassment, difference in leadership based on gender.” A study on Unilever.
 Did the project succeed in its aims/ how do you know? Specifically, please outline any
evaluation and assessment undertaken.
21

Yes, the research project completed in a successful way according to its aims related to the analysing
challenges related to the workplace equality and diversity and the ways through which it can be
resolved appropriately.
 What things do you think worked well and why? Evaluate all aspects of the project (e.g
initial inception, project activities and project outcomes) from a range of perspectives.
The research ability and skill towards the usage of WBS as well as Gantt chart helped me a lot in
performing research activities within a certain period of time as well as in estimated budget. As it
increases my patience, confidence as well as research skills that gives valuable results.
 What problems emerged during the project and how were they tackled? Was there timely
identification of issues and resolution during the project process?
Here, I faced some challenges as all members have different thoughts and ideas that creates more
conflicts among team as well as these can be resolved by using my leadership skill and take actions
towards them on time.
 What did you learn from undertaking the project?
This research helps in increasing time management skill and communication with increasing in my
learning and experience on the concept of equality and diversity.
 How would you rate your performance as a management consultant leading the project?
8 out of 10.
 What strengths and weakness of your performance did you identify?
As I identified my strengths related to the leadership quality, knowledge about the various techniques,
team cooperation etc. whereas, weaknesses are inappropriate utilisation of resources, time management.
 How will this inform and support your continuous professional development?
The entire research helps me in taking the future projects that will assist in developing professionalism
as well as it also raised my analytical thinking, research skills, communication as well as efficient
utilisation of resources.
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