Portfolio of Strategic Planning and Personal Reflection

This portfolio discusses the evaluation of the performance of Unilever, a British multinational organization, and proposes a strategic plan for the company. It also includes a reflection on the learning developed during the module and its support to career development.

PORTFOLIO OF
STRATEGIC PLANNING
AND PERSONAL
REFLECTION

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Evaluate the performance of the chosen business organisation...................................................3
Based on the evaluation, propose a strategic plan for the chosen organisation...........................4
Reflection on the learning that you developed during the module and support to you career
development.................................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
With emerging global businesses where many businesses are operating in international
boundaries in order to develop the global image and acquire large market share. With the rising
globalization, the business environment is also increasing at a fast pace both the internal and
external business environment. Wherein the internal business environment involves the changing
working dynamics, employee relationship and others, the external business environment involves
rising competition, changing consumer demand and others. In the context of Unilever which a
British multinational organisation operating in 190 countries and delivering its services to its
international customers, headquartered in London, England. The market offerings of the
company involve into three main categories that is food and refreshments, home care, beauty and
personal care. This report covers evaluation of the performance with the strategic plans,
reflection on the learning developed through the module (Ajmal, Helo and Kassem, 2017).
MAIN BODY
Evaluate the performance of the chosen business organisation
In order to evaluate the business performance in the marketplace, SWOT analysis can be
conducted in order to determine different business strategies and areas wherein the business is
going well and the areas where the business needs to pay attention. SWOT analysis on Unilever
is as:
Strengths
Economies of scale: As Unilever is a large business with large scale production capacity, thus the
production activities carried by the company are at large scale which brings the business
economies to scale which is determined by carrying the production activities at large scale with
optimum utilization of resources and reduced cost of the production (Akhmetshin and
et.al.,2017).
Strong brands: Unilever owns more than 400 brands ranging from food and drinks, beauty
products, home care and personal care which makes the company a producer of the large brand
which stands across the global market with unique brand features and quality products.
Weaknesses

Imitable products: Although Unilever is spending millions in product development but the
competitors or other firms can easily copy the products of the business at more attractive ranges,
which lead to drop in the customer reach and business growth.
Dependence on retailer: The too much reliance over the retailer leads Unilever to lose focus on
the consumers which leads to great business weakness as the business ignores the fact of directly
influencing the consumer segments.
Opportunities
Market development: By offering large range of products to the end customers segments,
Unilever focuses on developing new market attracting new customers segment. For e.g.: The
Lipton green tea offered by Unilever attracts the customers who are high diet conscious (Gaspar
and et.al.,2016).
Developing environment friendly products: With rising pollution in the environment, Unilever
brings up business approaches in order to improve the market offerings of the business, Unilever
is also planning to bring complete range of sustainable product which are ecofriendly by the year
2025.
Competitive strength: With high revenue share and global market positioning, Unilever achieves
high competitive advantages, by innovative the product development into new product ranges by
addressing the global customer needs which helps to make strong market position in the global
environment.
Threats
Competitive rivalry: Though Unilever has strong market image but it faces tough competition in
the global market with leading multinational companies delivering the similar product, covering
the quality and meeting the customer expectations. These leads the business to major business
threat, losses of sales and profitability margin (Halbert and Ingulli, 2020).
Based on the evaluation, propose a strategic plan for the chosen organisation
Based on the above discussion, strategic plan prosed in the favor of Unilever in order to
bring improvement in the products and accomplish market stability. To support the strategies
with the relevant justification, Ansoff Matrix is being applied to draw desired conclusions.

Ansoff Matrix is tool that helps business to make important business growth and development
decisions. It involves four business choice that any business can choose these are market
penetration, market development, product development, diversification. Business chooses from
these four strategies or the combination of these, in order to develop effective business growth
strategies. These strategies are discussed below:
Market penetration: Market penetration involves the strategies wherein the business develops
growth strategies to the existing product in order to increase the market share growth.
Thus, Unilever must focus on increasing the production capacities in order to reduce the
overhead cost of the business which further results to competitive pricing and increased sales and
product consumption which helps to increase the market penetration (Hooper, 2016).
Unilever can use effective communicational channels and increase the investment for marketing
activities in order to improve the customer engagement and towards the brand which will helps
the company in reaching out more targeted customers within existing market offerings.
Unilever can improve the channels of distribution, by developing new channels of supply chain
and distribution of the products, improving the distribution channel will help the business to
reach and access to large market share.
Unilever can deploy new pricing strategies to the existing product and services like competitive
pricing and price cuts, which helps to meet customer expectation and develop strong customer
perception which not only helps to mete the competition in the market place but also helps the
business to increase business sales.
Unilever can add new features and benefits to the existing products but the new features and
benefits must be innovative and unique that improves the customer living, to grab the attention of
both new and existing customers which will helps the business to acquire the profit ratio and
increase number of customer ratio (Kasemsap, 2018).
Product development: When business ants to expand the market share by new products into the
existing marketplace.

Unilever can adopt modification to the existing products by adding innovative features and
benefits to the products, these features must ensure to satisfy the consumer behavior and buying
pattern.
Unilever can develop new product development strategies; Unilever can deploy the research and
development departments in order to identify the target market who will be interested in
purchasing the offerings of the company, identifying their needs and converting them into the
new products.
Unilever can develop different quality of the same product in the same market, wherein the
company can set the prices accordingly pertaining to the quality of the products.
Unilever can invest in research and development in order to analyze the market demand and
trends and to bring efficiency in different business functions and bring innovative changes in the
new product development.
Market development: Unilever can develop business growth strategies by establishing the
existing products into the new markets.
Unilever should develop more research and development units into different location in order to
analyze the market trends, culture, the customer segments, their preferences and other in order to
determine the consumer behaviour of a specific location (Motohashi, 2015).
Unilever can also focus on improving the regional expansion wherein the business can expand
the new market into different regions of the same geographical location. In order to expand the
business into the new region, the company must adopt the changes in product in order to the
change in consumer culture and pattern.
Unilever can also develop the market development into the international boundaries wherein he
business needs to develop effective business growth strategies for understanding the preferences
of customer living in foreign land.
Unilever can develop business growth strategies of enhancing the customers segment into the
similar geographical borders which helps the business for tapping into the new market within
new same locations. In order to grab the attention of the new customer share, Unilever will have

to develop the new products with innovative features and benefits (Passera, Kankaanranta and
Louhiala-Salminen, 2017).
Diversification: Diversification is determined when a company develop new products for
entering into new markets.
Unilever can implement vertical diversification by developing new product into the existing
product lines which means adding changes or new features to the product of the same line.
Wherein the business can differentiate the ingredients used in the products, differentiate the
purpose and son on. Unilever can adopt favourable changes to the products b understanding the
changing customer demand and consumption pattern, like people living in UK are more health
conscious, quality living, high purchasing power and other which helps the business to develop
desirable changes to the products.
Unilever can adopt horizontal diversification which involves developing completely new product
which does not pertain to the existing products. Unilever can use different new product
development that suits the economic environment of the targeted segments and delivering them
the new product ranges without comprising over the quality of the products (Saleem, 2015).
Unilever can also diversify with new business in order to develop business products development
strategies and accomplish business growth and development. These involves working with new
business with innovative ideas of the new product development and the customer segment.
Merger and acquisition is also an important source of diversification, wherein Unilever can use
merger and acquisition in order to enter into new business line for conglomeratic business
growth. Merger and acquisition involves wherein, Unilever can work and coordinate with new
partner and business in order to enter into completely new market and new targeted customers
which can result in business growth and enhanced market share (Tallman, Luo and Buckley,
2018).
Reflection on the learning that you developed during the module and support to you career
development
The above discussion helped me to enhance my skills and learning over specific topics
that how business needs to implement specific strategies that best suits business objectives. The
sills that a developed by the end of the module are as:

Analytical skills: This module helped me to develop my analytical skills which involves
analyzing the data or statistics of a relevant topic. Wherein I collected different data from
different secondary sources and analyzed the data by preparing graphs, tables to compare actual
figures and draw relevant conclusions.
Communication skills: With the help of this module, I am able to improve my communication
skill bot verbal and written. Wherein, I was able to communicate with my team member the real
objectives of the project work, also while data collection I was able to work on my written
communication skills that will helps in my near future to accomplish my future career goals
(Tuleja, 2016).
Project management and planning: Project management and planning is an important skill that
helps determine different business factor and formulate the suitable plans that best suits the
project objectives. With the above discussion, wherein it involved that how the chosen
organisation took different business steps and measures in order to cope up with the internal and
external business environment challenges.
Marketing, sales: The above discussion clearly helped me to develop my knowledge on
marketing and sales that how different marketing and sales strategies can be implemented in
order to accomplish the market share, to build market position, market stability consumer
perception, business profitability and others (Wei, Thurasamy and Popa, 2018).
CONCLUSION
Thus, in accordance to the above report, it is clear business environment involved
different opportunities and challenges which needs to analyzed by the company and develop
suitable calls to cation in order to cope up with business environment factors. With rising
globalization business must evaluate the different strategies in order to bring continuous
improvement in the existing organizational products and services. The strategic plan developed
in the report delivers the clear justification of a business develop suitable plan in order to cope up
with competition, changing market trends and others. the reflection at the and delivered that the
skills and knowledge that an individual developed during the project work which helps to
accomplish the future career goals.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ajmal, M., Helo, P. and Kassem, R., 2017. Conceptualizing trust with cultural perspective in
international business operations. Benchmarking: An International Journal.
Akhmetshin, E. and et.al.,2017. Analysis of innovation activity of enterprises in modern business
environment. J. Advanced Res. L. & Econ. 8. p.2311.
Gaspar, J. and et.al.,2016. Introduction to global business: Understanding the international
environment & global business functions. Cengage Learning.
Halbert, T. and Ingulli, E., 2020. Law and ethics in the business environment. Cengage Learning.
Hooper, M. J., 2016. The global business handbook: The eight dimensions of international
management. CRC Press.
Kasemsap, K., 2018. Mastering business process management and business intelligence in global
business. In Global Business Expansion: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and
Applications (pp. 76-96). IGI Global.
Motohashi, K., 2015. Global business strategy: Multinational corporations venturing into
emerging markets (p. 259). Springer Nature.
Passera, S., Kankaanranta, A. and Louhiala-Salminen, L., 2017. Diagrams in contracts: Fostering
understanding in global business communication. IEEE Transactions on Professional
Communication. 60(2). pp.118-146.
Saleem, S., 2015. BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT, 3/e. Pearson Education India.
Tallman, S., Luo, Y. and Buckley, P. J., 2018. Business models in global competition. Global
Strategy Journal. 8(4). pp.517-535.
Tuleja, E. A., 2016. Intercultural Communication for Global Business: How leaders
communicate for success. Taylor & Francis.
Wei, L. H., Thurasamy, R. and Popa, S., 2018. Managing virtual teams for open innovation in
global business services industry. Management Decision.