Benefits of Technology and Innovation in Business Operations: Unilever

This report investigates the advantages of technology and innovation in business operations, focusing on a case study of Unilever. It examines how Unilever leverages innovation and technology to enhance its business management, achieve competitive advantages, and meet dynamic consumer demands. The study addresses key research questions regarding the understanding, benefits, and challenges of implementing technology and innovation within Unilever. It delves into Unilever's strategies for product innovation, supply chain management, marketing, and human resources, highlighting the role of modern technologies in improving productivity, communication, and sustainability. The report also discusses the challenges faced by Unilever in adopting new technologies, such as managing large datasets and adapting to evolving market trends. Ultimately, the report provides valuable insights into how multinational corporations like Unilever can harness technology and innovation to drive growth and success in a competitive global market. Desklib provides access to this and similar solved assignments for students.

The benefits of technology and innovation
in management of business operations
“A study of Unilever”

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................4
Research Title:............................................................................................................................4
Research questions:.....................................................................................................................6
Research aim and objectives:......................................................................................................6
Research Methodology:.................................................................................................................8
Timescale:...................................................................................................................................9
Resources:.................................................................................................................................10
Literature review.........................................................................................................................11
To develop basic understanding regarding the innovation and technology in context of
business.....................................................................................................................................11
To determine the advantages of innovation and technology at workplace of Unilever............11
To ascertain the challenges that would be faced by Unilever while implementing the
innovation and technology in Unilever.....................................................................................12
Discussion......................................................................................................................................14
Findings and Analysis....................................................................................................................15
Evaluation of findings....................................................................................................................27
Theme 1: Basic knowledge about innovation and technology in context of an organisation...27
Theme 2: Significance of technology in enhancement of productivity of Unilever.................28
Conclusions and Recommendations..............................................................................................30
Reflection.......................................................................................................................................32
REFERENCES.............................................................................................................................33
Appendix.......................................................................................................................................36

INTRODUCTION
Business management related to those activities done by mangers and other employees of
the organisation to achieve the goals of the organisation. These activities includes best utilisation
of resources, prepare effective strategies. It involves strategy related to production. Supply,
marketing, advertisement, promotion and distribution of products and services. The effectiveness
of business management is depend on managers, they should have systematic and professional
knowledge about business and managerial responsibilities. Managers of business organisation
must incudes the skills and traits of a good manager. Unilever plc is an British multinational
company deals in products related to home care, personal care. Beauty products and grocery. The
headquarter of Unilever plc is located in London, England..
Research Title:
To identify the benefits of technology and innovation in management of business
operations. A study on Unilever.
Background to research topic\
Innovation and technology plays a vital role in the success of business management. Innovation
related to make changes in the existing product. It is not possible for business organisation to
introduce new products in short span of time but the needs and preference of customer becomes
dynamic in present scenario so companies innovate their existing products with different features
to satisfy dynamic needs. Innovation helps business management to perform their activities
effectively and efficiently. Management needs innovation in many activities. In advertisement
innovation provides attractive methods to management to advertise product. Innovative
advertisement techniques helps to attracts the customers rapidly because customer always
recognise unique advertisement. Innovation helps business management to gain competitive
advantage in industry. Every organisation in provides similar products but with the help of
innovation management provide unique product and gain customer loyalty which helps them to
take competitive advantage. Innovation needs new and advance ideas which enables the
company to provide something new in market which differentiate the business from competitors.
There are many methods which company can use to improve the performance of management .
Research and development department plays an important role towards the innovation and
4

technology in organisation. This department develops new technologies which helps company to
perform their business activities efficiently. Creation of new products and innovation in existing
products are also done in research and development department. All data collected from the
market include dynamic need of consumer, taste and preference transferred to research and
development department and after analyse this data, department develops the product as per data
collected. Use of modern technology allow the business to enter in new markets so that base of
customer can increase
Use of modern technology opens many opportunity for the business. It allows business to expand
in new markets of the world, because technology makes distribution channel, communication
and transportation of goods and services easy. This expansion increases the number of customer.
Innovation allows company to increase productivity by a way of modern technology, best
allocation of resources. Technology helps to develops effective network of communication
which enables the company to operate their business operations in all over the world. It improves
the banking facilities of the company because nowadays digital payment system is most popular
in payment. Technology allows to make digital payment easy and effectively. Time saving
advantage of modern technology is most important feature for business it allows the business
organisation to focus on other activities.
Introduction of company - Unilever Plc is a UK based multinational organisation which is
providing consumer good to their customers. It was established by William Lever in the year
1929 in UK. It is providing food product, home care products, personal care and health care
products to their customers .(Cole, Stevenson, Aitken, 2019). It is working with improving lives
of consumer and communities around different parts of world. This organisation is among fourth
largest company in term of their sales in worldwide (Unilever - Statistics & Facts, 2021). It is
promoting innovation in their organisation which helps them to get growth and success in
market. Most promising brand provided by company in market includes Dove, Knorr, Lipton,
Axe.
Background to research organisation
Unilever plc is British multinational company. This company is based on consumer goods. It
operates in more than 150 countries and offer huge varieties of consumer product. The
5

management is always on growth. Unilever owns more than 400 products which incudes any
types of products satisfy the needs of different section of society. It deals in toothpaste,
detergent, bottled water, beauty products.. the biggest producer of soaps in the world is Unilever
it provides soaps in different brands having different features satisfy the consumer needs.
Introduction of company – Unilever plc is a UK basesd multinational company provides
consumer goods in the market. William Lever established this company in 1929. The ideology
behind this company is consumer satisfaction and increase the standard of living by their
innovative and useful product. Unilever plc is the fourth largest company in the world in term of
revenue. This shows the level of customer loyalty towards company.
Research questions:
 How to develop basic understanding regarding the innovation and technology in context
of business.
 How to determine the advantages of using technology and innovation at workplace
of Unilever?
 What are the challenges that would be faced by Unilever while implementing innovation
and technology at workplace?
Research aim and objectives:
Aim:
“To identify the benefits of technology and innovation in management of business
operations. A study on Unilever”
Objectives:
 To develop basic understanding regarding the innovation and technology in context of
business.
 To determine the advantages of using technology and innovation at workplace
of Unilever.
6

 To ascertain the challenges that would be faced by Unilever while implementing
innovation and technology at workplace.
7

Research Methodology:
Research methodology: - Research methodology refers to those technique of research
under which the information related to any particular topic can identify, process and analyse. The
reason behind conduct on any topic is to solve the problem of various investigator of research.
Research methodology can be called effective if it provides information to the user in very
effective manner. Unilever conducts research in organisation and use research onion which is
given below.
Research philosophies: - Research philosophies related to the development of research
assumptions, information and nature. Research philosophies. This philosophy helps the user to
gather and analyse the information about the particular research. Under the various business
studies these philosophies are divided in four parts such as Pragmatism, Positivism, Realism and
Interpretivism.
Research approach: - Research approach related to those approach which includes further
assumption to detailed method of data collection analysis and interpretation. It helps the users to
obtained systematic knowledge about the research. Research approach is divided in three
categories Quantitative, Qualitative and mixed.
Choices of method: - In this research, researcher uses quantitative method of research approach
to increase clarity in project.
8

Data collection and analysis: Questionnaire is used for completing this research. This
has helped to interpret the data properly through the use of pie chart.
Sample size: The sample size is 30 and respondents are employees of Unilever.
Analysis of data: The secondary data is analyzed through literature review and primary data is
evaluated through statistical analysis.
Timescale:
9

Resources:
Resources related to the work material used by the researcher in their task. Resources is very
important for any research because it is the base for any information provided in resource. Proper
utilisation of utilisation of resources makes the research effective for users. Researcher uses
many types of resources such as physical, technological financial and human resources. Unilever
also uses many resources for the development and growth in market
10

Literature review
To develop basic understanding regarding the innovation and technology in context of business
According to the views of Helo, Hao (2019), Innovation plays an important role in the
survival of the business. As the world is changing rapidly and preference of the consumer
becomes dynamic, consumer demands different and new products continuously, so it is not
possible for the business organisations to produce new products. Organisations adopt the
innovation in their product, it simply develops their existing product with some new features and
different marketing strategy (Hassani, Silva, Kaabi, 2017). This innovation technique makes the
customer loyal towards company's brand also restricts the customers to switch on another
product.
There is a cut throat competition in every market, every product has a lots of substitutes which
makes harder for company to increase profit margins, so company uses modern technology for
the production of goods and services which reduces the cost of production and increases the
profit margins (Hughes, and et.al., 2019). Technology helps the organisation to gain competitive
advantage in market. Use of modern technology enables customer attraction towards the
business. Technology enables the enables the effective communication in business organisation.
Technology helps the business organisation to run their processes effectively.
To determine the advantages of innovation and technology at workplace of Unilever
As per the views of Ismail, Khater, Zaki (2017), innovation become the major strength for
Unilever plc, Unilever analyses the dynamic behaviour of consumer from the market and adopt
the innovation policy. It deals in food and beauty products related products, consumer uses
beauty products is very dynamic so to fulfil the needs of these consumers Unilever introduces
new products continuously. Innovation enables the Unilever to achieve the dominating position
in the market and also advantage on their competitors. Unilever introduces delivery innovation,
under this Unilever conducts the home delivery of their products, this innovation makes great
role because in COVID pandemic times, consumer prefer online purchase of product instead of
purchase from brand store contains a huge crowd. Unilever makes innovation in their business
processes. Unilever sells different types of products like beauty products, health products, home
11

care and groceries products, which contains lots of inventory requires proper inventory
management new technologies provides a different software for inventory management. The cost
of the products increases due to wastage because use of traditional production technologies, use
of modern production technologies decreases wastage of raw material and increases the profit
margins. Use of modern technology enables the Unilever increases the innovative abilities.
Modern technology changes the process of human research department in Unilever, in this
technology company advertise the vacant vacancy on their online portal and candidates simply
upload their resume to online portal and if human resource manager thinks the candidate suitable
so arrange interview online (Keiningham, and et.al., 2020). This technology enables the Unilever
to find talent from all over the world.
As the Unilever is multinational company operates in more than 150 countries requires a
coordination between them, so Unilever uses well developed technology to establish
coordination between them. Company uses modern technology for the process of production to
gain the competitive advantage from the market. New technologies help the Unilever to gain the
speciality in marketing. New technology helps the Unilever for the waste management, under
this project, Unilever uses the modern technology and recycles sachet which the end consumer
thrown after use of product. Unilever implement the cloud services in the organisations which
secures the companies information (Kwak, Seo, Mason, 2018). Unilever has operated in more
than 150 countries they have huge consumer base and data so cloud service provides large
storage for customer data.
To ascertain the challenges that would be faced by Unilever while implementing the innovation
and technology in Unilever
It is analysed from the views of (Li and et.al., 2020), Demotivated employees are the
biggest challenge faced by Unilever plc in adopting innovation in business. Demotivated
employees always resist the changes in organisation. Selection of suitable innovation policy
makes challenge for the managers, Unilever has to make strong connections with the customers
so that company analyses the unfulfilled needs of the consumer and innovate their product
12