Unilever Sustainable Living Plan critical study

RUNNING HEAD: UNILEVER LIVING PLAN
Unilever Sustainable Living Plan critical study
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1UNILEVER LIVING PLAN
Introduction:
The Unilever Company is considered to be one of the leading multinational co-
operations. The company is reputed for owning a plethora of consumer product brands in a
variety of sectors like food, personal care, cleansing, beverage and others. Unilever Company,
like most of the companies having a considerable amount of strength holds a capacity of
exploring their market areas (Lawrence, Joanne, Andreas Rasche, and Kevina Kenny).
Moreover, this company is backed off by several key global brands that give the company
strength and courage to enter in foreign markets. When Paul Polman was appointed as the new
CEO of the company the company was facing a long term decline. In order to improve the
condition he decided to change some strategies in the business and introduce the Unilever
Sustainable Living Plan which aimed at the attainment of the core sustainability goals. The plan
has been directly linked with the earning and returns and is evaluated with its capacity of driving
growth, reducing costs, attracting talents and mitigating risks. This sustainable plan mainly
highlights three major missions which are “improving health and well being”, “Reducing the

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environmental impact” and finally “Enhancing livelihoods” (Polman, and Bhattacharya). Each
mission has been established with a set of concrete goals. The present report will look into a
detailed analysis of the sustainability plan and will measure its effectiveness to forecast the
future trend. The report will also analyze the context of the company through porters five force
analysis model in understanding the effectiveness of the implementation. At the end it will duly
recommend few alternatives for better sustainability.
Analysis of the problem area using Porter’s five force:
The current economic decision that has emerged worldwide is an important factor that affects the
operation of any business. Unilever being a large global company prioritizes mainly on the
competition and the bargaining power of customers in the industry. The competitive rivalry has
been viewed as the most important and strongest external forces that affect the sustainability of
Unilever. There are many firms in the industry that produces consumer goods which in turn
creates a strong force on Unilever. The number and size of these new entrants are comparatively
on higher side and Unilever will need a strong distribution network in order to cope up with the
problem. However, the loyal customer brand that the company has is a cushion for Unilever. It is
easy for consumers to shift effectively from one firm to another. Thus Unilever has to face a
strong competition in this regard (Murphy, Patrick , and Caitlin. Murphy).
A vast amount of industry environment of Unilever depends on the consumer’s response towards
the product. This has a high chance that the buyers will influence the business performance of
Unilever to a large extent. Unilever had to address to the external factors like the low switching
cost and high quality of information. The low switching cost will eventually make the consumer
to transfer from Unilever’s product to another product. The external factor contributes to the high
power of bargaining by the bargaining power of the buyers. Suppliers impact the industry of

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Unilever’s environment as it affects the level of supply that is available to firms. Finally the
company has high threat of substitute product because of the low alternative price offer by other
substitute companies. The low nature of switching cost and the enhanced quality affects the
business of Unilever. In such situation the sustainable plan was a responsive approach towards
the above mentioned problem.
The Sustainable Living Plan Analysis:
The Sustainable Living Plan of the Unilever Company focuses on the achievement of the three
significant objectives in the year 2020.
1. “The organization will help more than one billion individuals in improving the wellbeing and
prosperity.
2. The Company will target lessening the ecological effect of the items to half.
3. the organization would source the horticultural crude material in an all out supportable way.”
(Mizera, 2013).
Detailed around these three objectives , the site of the organization offers different models just as
measurements on the methods for accomplishing objectives in the territories of sustenance,
wellbeing and cleanliness, ozone harming substance, squander, economical sourcing, water and
better jobs. Supportability specialists and green websites valued this feasible arrangement.
Nonetheless, a closer investigation of the arrangement will uncover that this technique is