Business Project Report: Current Challenges & Stakeholder Analysis

This business project report identifies current challenges faced by organizations, focusing on Unilever, and analyzes the impact of these challenges on stakeholders. Key issues include the COVID-19 pandemic, sustainability concerns, and adverse market conditions. The report examines the purpose of understanding these challenges and their benefits to the company and its stakeholders. Internal and external stakeholders, such as government, employees, suppliers, and customers, are evaluated for their influence on the organization's operations and social responsibility. Secondary data is used to evaluate the challenges and their impact, leading to recommendations for improving employee skills, adhering to regulations, and meeting customer needs. The report concludes that understanding stakeholder roles and addressing business challenges are crucial for achieving organizational goals. Desklib offers a platform for students to access similar solved assignments and study tools.

Business Project

TABLE OF CONTENT
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................4
Challenges or problem faced by business organization in current affairs:..................................4
Purpose of this report:..................................................................................................................6
Impact of research on stakeholder:..............................................................................................6
Evaluation and analysis with secondary data of the report..........................................................7
Recommendations......................................................................................................................13
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................16
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

Executive Summary.
Business projects which are intended to achieve the definition of business goals and objective
and also being aligned with company business strategy. Business projects can be also used to
called to many names such as administrative projects, functional projects and internal projects
etc. the main purpose of report was to identified about the current issues faced by clients in
organization. Business management which also keep their focus on analysing, planning and
organizing the various forms of business activities. Along with this, that are also required to
efficiently managed and run out their business. It is important because, it helps for managing
coordination and various organization activities, also try to ensure for meet up the business goals
and objectives. The issue that organization is facing within towards their clients, sustainability,
covid-19 and market condition. It had been also seems that, organization is also facing issues in
competition for marketing talent, disruption by direct-to-consumer and so on. Moreover,
examined about the main purpose of report which could keep the specific issues and how it had
been benefits to client from company. Organization that also has their main external and internal
stakeholder such as government, employee, suppliers, consumer, customer, trade association,
local communities, manager and shareholder. The major impacts on organization due to
stakeholder that has been increased how company operate as social responsibility and
community citizenship are being more and more integrated into their business management.
Customer, employee, suppliers and many other business partner are groups that carry weight in
company and make their decision towards the activities. It had been also summarized that,
collection of secondary data and this could also lead for main purpose in report. Sustainability,
due to condition of nature, the company is facing huge challenges and government that have also
taken the role towards the stricter in promoting sustainable environment. The main purpose for
the research, was to evaluated about what kind of impacts of stakeholder towards the
organization and how to overcome with their problems. It also summarized that in business
activities, organization which need to face the huge challenges and that could help them for
prepared with strategy. For reduction in issues, they need to work more on employee skills and
knowledge, follow up the rules and regulation related to their products and services, try to meet
the customer needs and wants. This could lead them for working with some better outcomes and
ensure them for achieving the business goals and objective. It is also summarized about how the

stakeholder in organization play their effective role and ensured them for having their more
business working activities.
INTRODUCTION
Business management is coordination of multiple activities in handling and managing
company, this is a wide term which include overall activities both operational and financial.
Management can be challenging as business deal in certain market condition and keep getting
affected with these internal and external factors, management have four main pillars such as
planning, organizing, directing and controlling these four pillar complete the management
activities in the business organization (Erasmus, Strydom and Rudansky-Kloppers, 2017).
Administration of business is mainly managed by manager who have responsibility to look after
the workplace and stakeholders of the company. Many large scale firm like Unilever need to
have business management practice to manage the activities of company. This study is based on
Unilever, this company is based on retail and grocery sector. Unilever is one of the largest retail
company in the world with wide range of product and service, this company tend to provide high
quality products to win the expectation of customer in the market.
Unilever have most effective and efficient business management process which allow
them to manage their business in high competitive and ever-changing market. Unilever have
being facing issue in the current market condition which impact the management process of the
company. This report will provide executive summary highlighting every essential points that
will be covered in this report. Later this report will discuss challenges or problem faced by client
or company in the market, these challenges include COVID-19 issue, substantiality issue and
market condition. Later this report will evaluate purpose of this report and highlight key points
covered. Later impact of research on stakeholders will be examined, this report will analyse both
internal and external stakeholder which impact the company and evaluation and analysis of
secondary data will be provided. At last in this report, recommendation will be provided. At last
conclusion will complete the structure.
MAIN BODY
Challenges or problem faced by business organization in current affairs:
Every business organization face problem in the market where they deal in the market,
these challenges become barriers in smooth flow of process. Many large scale business

organization like Unilever face issue from current events of the world which keep changing due
to changing business environment (Mendling and et.al., 2018). There are some current affairs
which become the biggest challenge for Unilever in the market which are as follows:
COVID-19: This pandemic has become the biggest barrier for every business in almost every
sector, this current event have slow down the speed of companies and even become the failure of
the business organization. Unilever belong to retail industry which was majorly impacted due of
this pandemic, COVID-19 not only bring down the sales of the company but this also have made
Unilever to restart some of their product line which was completely destroyed by the pandemic
(Meyer, Prescott and Sheng, 2021). COVID-19 directly impacted the management system of
Unilever, hence this was one of the largest retail firm which management was also challenges
become more complicated due to this impact. When government introduce work for home policy
for the employee, management structure of every business was affected, although Unilever have
faced this challenges effectively.
Sustainability: due to the condition of nature, various government have taken certain steps to
control and manage environment and its sustainability, it is very clear that after COVID-19
impact people have understood the importance of nature and value of maintaining the nature.
People are now demanding more sustainability from company in their product, government now
have become stricter in promoting sustainable environment for every firm. For Unilever,
sustainability have become issue in current time, because this company manufacture wide range
of product and regularly use plastic in their packaging process (Thiele, 2016). This is becoming
challenge for company day by day as every government now banning use of plastic to maintain
sustainability. Recently government of UK took certain steps and developed sustainability policy
which every industry have to follow, this was effective step to reduce the harm over nature but
Unilever have no such plan to face this challenge.
Market condition: after the impact of COVID-19, condition of market have become worse than
ever. This impact was so powerful that is had unbalanced the market and made to hard for
companies to survive. Worse market condition not only increase the prices of raw material but
this also dis-balance labour market stability (Von Wachter, 2020). The market condition of UK
state that Unilever have faced huge issue such as high cost of raw material, high wages demand
of workers and low demand of products from customer. These major issue will continue to
impact the company because this pandemiof thec is not stable yet. Unilever have wide range ofof

the product which need raw material on regular basis, although this company have suppliers who
keep the flow but still at some point cost of manufacturing these goods are high. This challenge
becoming tough day by day for Unilever as market condition is getting worst.
Purpose of this report:
Purpose of this report is to understand how business manage their every day activities and
how business management work in the workplace. Apart from one major purpose there are some
small one as well such as issue faced by company in current time and impact of research on
stakeholders. This report provide clear understanding of stakeholders and their importance in the
business organization. Another purpose include evaluation skills needed in analysing secondary
data to answer question in this report. Recommendation will be addressed in the end of the report
with conclusion providing understanding of this report.
Impact of research on stakeholder:
Stakeholders are one of the most powerful and important pillar of every business
organization, without stakeholder a company can not process further. Every company have two
types of stakeholder such as internal stakeholder and external stakeholder, these internal
stakeholders are employee, management and other department whereas external stakeholder are
suppliers, government and customer (Goodpaster, 2016). These stakeholders keep affecting firm
in both positive and negative way, some stakeholder have high power whereas some have low,
this division in stakeholder allow company to be stable in all part of the business environment.
Unilever is large business organization who have various types of stakeholder which keep
affecting the business, involvement of both internal and external stakeholder are analysed by
Unilever to maintain the smooth flow. Unilever use power and interest grid of Mendalow's
matrix which allow company to understand which stakeholder impacts the company most. These
power grid include four important elements such as:
High power high interest: these type of stakeholder have high power and high interest in the
business organization, every company need to keep them satisfy as their decision are valuable.
These stakeholders include manager, leaders, suppliers and investor. They not only have high
power, but they also have high interest in decision-making process of the company. Unilever
have these type of stakeholder who provide valuable experience to the company in the decision-
making process, but they also demand high interest in the form of share in the profit of the
company.

High power low interest: these type of stakeholder may have high power, but they do not show
any interest in the working of the company. Some stakeholder keep eye on company because
they have power to influence the decision, but they do not interrupt in the process because they
have low interest. These stakeholders include government, customer and those supplier who do
not deal on regular basis. Unilever keep satisfy these stakeholders because they might have low
interest, but they also have high power which anytime can impact the company, for example
government have low interest but with high power they can interfere in the decision-making
process of Unilever.
Low power high interest: these type of stakeholder have low power but have high interest,
these stakeholders have great importance in the business organization because they provide those
informations which is internal and beneficial (Vogler, Macey and Sigouin, 2017). Unilever mark
these stakeholders as hidden agent who provide information of those areas which is not
performing well, these informations later can be used in decision-making process. Example of
these type of stakeholder are CSR group and community group that influence the business
organization.
Low power low interest: these stakeholders may have low power and low interest, but they can
influence the smooth flow of the company. These stakeholders include public and local residency
where a business deal in, these stakeholders can not mainly affect the business but at some point
their power can be increased which is dangerous for the company. Unilever already know that
public may have low interest but their power can be changed any time if the company does
something wrong.
Unilever keep getting affected from these stakeholders and also they keep their
stakeholder satisfy to avoid any kind of internal conflict due of less importance of any such
stakeholder. This company know that both internal and external stakeholder have powers which
not only impact the smooth flow but this even can become reason to failure of the company.
Management of business entirely demand upon the power and interest a stakeholder have in their
business organization.
Evaluation and analysis with secondary data of the report
In this entire report, it has been mentioned the Unilever company issue and obstacle which is
affecting the company growth and development. In general, in this rapid growing world, every
organization or industry is facing the different kinds of obstacles in their business occupation

which makes them to obtain lower outcome and bad results. The internal data or information of
the company is determined here which will help to analyse and evaluate the company growth
obstacle (Leone, Fleischhacker, Anderson-Steeves, and et.al., 2020). Unilever company has
majorly faced three problems or challenges in the market which is directly affecting their
productivity. According to the secondary data, it has been founded that Unilever company is
dealing with the obstacles due to Covid19.
The recent pandemic Covid19 makes major impact on the company growth and
development. It has already known that Unilever is a retail company which provides different
products to an individual. Due to the pandemic, government has implemented the lock down
session in the entire world to protect the human creature from this global spread disease. Food
and beverages are the essential needs of the living being to stay healthy and alive. The pandemic
drastically impact the company which reduced their revenue and productivity. The entire
rotational system has been stopped because of the pandemic and a company needs to suffer from
many ups and downs (Maria, Zaid, and et.al., 2020). This pandemic also impact the stakeholder
health from which it created a risk in the organization. Stakeholder is the people of the company
which includes all the departments and people who help to run and conduct the company
structure. Working in a such environment got very risky and difficult and also can cause the
diseases which can affect the human body. The below figure 1 is demonstrating the financial
statement of the Unilever company during the covid19 pandemic which affects the growth of the
organization. The market values has drop down in 2020 with 3% share price and decreases the
value of the company.

Due to this pandemic the company has to start the remote work styles and even online
delivery system to approach the new consumers. In the remote working patterns people or
employee can be able to work and obtain the better outcome to the organization. Remote
working and online delivery makes the company result at the level from which they can be able
to provide and produce the stable amount of the products to the consumer. The pandemic
actually makes difficulties in the organization and decreases the growth and productivity (Xu,
Elomri, Kerbache, and et.al., 2020). In addition, after the Covid19 pandemic the government has
start to look out for the sustainable environment and surroundings. Substantiality is the important
part of every living being and maintaining the sustainability is actually essential to live a healthy
lifestyle. Covid19 has made many obstacles already in the company and now due to this disease
government has start to balance the environment and surrounding. Unilever is an international
company which manufacture various products and goods. Most of the organization do not follow
the sustainability activity in their organization and harms the environment effectively. Similarly,
the company also not followed and practices the sustainable programs and acts in their
organization which is definitely impacting the surrounding in the large manner.
Company is providing the different products such as beauty products, toothpastes,
cleaning agents, pet food and many more which contains the plastic objects which harms the
Illustration 1: Unilever withdraw grow during Covid19
(Source : Business Standards)

environment. Plastic is harmful for the environment and can cause life threatening deaths to the
living creatures. For example, the company is utilizing the plastic object to provide the beauty
cosmetics. Manufacturing of the plastic requires different toxic chemical which harms the
surrounding and increases the pollution (Fairlie, 2020). After the Covid19 people are focusing
and aware about their health and well-being. Unilever organization start to focus on the
sustainability in their organization and working on reducing the harmful effects. The company is
currently working on the net zero emissions world by 2039. In this plan, the company is
transitioning to renewable resources and utilizing the low carbon ingredients for their
manufacturing. Along with this, the company is also focusing ion the deforestation and
regenerating the forests, land and oceans with reducing the usage of palm tress for making the oil
sentiments. The company is encouraging the farmers and suppliers to drive this systematic
change into a drastic change by making the earth green.
The Unilever company is reducing the usage of plastic materials and utilizing the cloth
and jute bags for containing any product. Jute bags are mostly utilized by the company to carry
the goods and items by the consumers while shopping. The company is following all the rules
and regulation to make the world more sustainable and green environment. This action will also
increase the growth and development of the company as nowadays consumer are looking for the
brands and organization who is involved in this sustainability projects and supporting to reduce
the harm to the environment. The company is required to focus on this sustainability activity as
in this growing world the huge competition is taking place in the retail industry. Unilever is a
leading multinational company and it is able to obtain higher outcome but the recent pandemic
and managing the sustainability in the organization is quite difficult. The technologies and
launching of new industries are giving the great competition to the Unilever organization. During
the pandemic the market goes very low which makes many business organization to shut down
their business.
Market plays a very important role in the business life structure (Sharma, Luthra, Joshi,
and et.al., 2020). It can be understood when the markets good it has chance to obtain higher
outcome but if the market is low then the company have to deal with many obstacles with lower
outcome and result. Similarly, the Unilever company also has to face many challenges and issue
with decrease of the market values. The company is providing the material which are basically
utilized in the daily life of an individual. Market conditions are depends on the economic growth

and consumer demand which affects the business organization. The organization requires
monitoring and understand the market condition which helps them to grow and develop. Let's
consider an example over here, the company Unilever wants to launch a new product in the
market. The company will look out and focus on the market position which will include the
public demand (Battersby, 2017). The company will only launch their product when the
consumer demand is high from which the company can be able top obtain the higher success.
An availability of products in the market puts an impact on the organization as the higher
amount of availability in the market causes the value or price of the product down and if the
product quantity is in average ranges or limited the cost of the product will increase accordingly.
Along with this, the company can have a bad impact on the organization when a new retail
company launches and providing their best offers and services to attract the consumers. A new
company have an innovation and ideologies which they implement in their business and obtain
all the focus in their organization effectively. The person who is new at the business will not
have any experience of the market but still they have an effective knowledge from which they
can be able to improve and increase their market values and productivity in the effective manner.
The pandemic has majorly impacted the market condition of the entire world and makes many
business to suffer from obstacles.
Due to this, the global market have to deal with low cash flow management and makes
the company and world to decrease their GDP. The international market reduced their GDP from
which many organizations have to suffered from great loses. Unilever company has faced many
issues during the Covid19 which decreases their productivity. Looking at this, the management
has decided to provide the effective product to the company which will create a growth again in
this industry (Salzman, Bennett, Carroll, and et.al., 2018). Unilever company has launched and
advertises the products by utilizing the different strategies in the marketplace. Accordingly, in
secondary research it has also been founded that stakeholders are the main drivers to run any
organization and plays a vital role in the place. Stakeholder includes the people of different
sectors such as employee, manufacturer, supplier, government and such more. These all are the
main players of the organization which control and run the entire organization to drive the
company at successful position. Here, describing the role and impact of the stakeholder to the
Unilever company which helps to grow and develop.

Employee : Looking at the first factor which is introducing the term employee who is the part of
the stakeholder. Employee or worker are the people who put their efforts and hard work to drive
the company at successful position. The company employee are responsible to look out for the
process, sales and marketing according to their different departments. The employee makes and
improve the company growth by maintaining the product quality and their skills in marketing of
the products and brands.
Suppliers : Suppliers are the people who transport the products and goods from one place to
another. They are the primary stakeholder of the company as they help organization to sell and
generate the revenue from the sales and services (Pantano, Pizzi, Scarpi, and et.al., 2020).
Supplier and vendors contributes their efforts by serving and transporting the goods to the
potential consumer or the retail stores which can improve and increase the company ability to
achieve the definite objectives.
Consumers : Consumers are also a part of stakeholder of an organization. They are the primary
stakeholder to the company who directly put the impact on the company growth and economic
structure. It is already known that a company is providing the good and services for the people
and consumer to utilize them. If the people not purchase the goods and products then they were
of no use. Customer is the main stakeholder of the company indirectly as they are the one who is
buying the products and increasing the company growth and development.
Government : The last factor determine the term government and tie rules and regulation. The
upper authorization are also a compliment of stakeholder to the company. For example, the
government has modified the tax revenue which will change the entire system of an organization
and a company needs to follow the rules and laws necessarily (Guix, Bonilla-Priego, and et.al.,
2018). They are also benefited from these activities and will improve the GDP of the particular
country.