Business Studies Coursework 1 Portfolio: Unilever's Key Departments

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Unilever's business operations, focusing on the roles of human resources, marketing, and finance departments. It examines how these departments contribute to the company's overall growth and efficiency, including strategies for employee management, marketing techniques, and financial planning. The report also explores the importance of collaborative working practices within Unilever, highlighting how these practices enhance employee values, communication, and team performance. Furthermore, it emphasizes the significance of financial management in Unilever, discussing how it ensures the efficient allocation of funds, financial health, and transparency. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the interdependencies of these various aspects in achieving Unilever's competitive advantage and market success.

INTRODUCTION TO
BUSINESS STUDIES
COURSEWORK 1 -
PORTFOLIO

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Role of Human Resource, Marketing, Finance...........................................................................1
Understanding of Collaborative Working Practices...................................................................2
Importance of Financial Management In Unilever.....................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
In this report there is a brief information about Unilever and all the major factors which
will impact the growth of the company. The report will also help to understand the internal
factors which will grow the organization effectively.
Role of Human Resource, Marketing, Finance
Unilever have to understand all the roles and responsibilities of the departments which
will help the company to formulate the effective strategies and increase the efficiency of the
company.
Human resource Management
As Unilever is employing many employees in the company it is very important for the
company to determine the optimum use of their human resources and increase the efficiency to
increase the efficiency of the operations within the company (Nazarova, 2015). Human resource
management will help the company with various aspects of the company and also increase the
productivity of the company to compete in the market.
1. Unilever have to analyse that the role of Human resource management in the company is
to place the right person at the right job and increase the efficiency of the company by
appointing them at the right time which will also decrease the cost of the company.
2. They are also responsible for formulating the policies and strategies which will increase
the efficiency of the employees with the help of Training and development which will
provide better skills and knowledge to the employees to perform any task.
3. Human resources of Unilever also have to motivate the employees to boost their moral
and also increase the retention of the employees to the company and decrease the cost of
the company. As the company is focusing on the customer's satisfaction they need to
increase the knowledge so that they can deal with the customers and understand the
culture of the company by proving a healthy work environment.
4. They are also responsible to increase the level of communication in the company as the
human resource management facilitates better communication channels.
Marketing
It is the major aspect of the Unilever as the company focuses on the sales of their
products and for that marketing help the company to deliver their products to the customers with
1

increased satisfaction as marketing help the customers to increase their knowledge and provide a
better understanding so that they can make effective decision in buying the goods which will
increase their satisfaction.
1. Marketing helps Unilever to compete in the market by formulating the effective strategies
which will increase the sales and support the growth of the company.
2. It is also responsible to increase the communication and relations with the customers
which help the company to increase the customer loyalty. (Iannuzzi, 2017)
3. Unilever have also benefited themselves with the marketing and it helped the company to
increase the products which are according to the wants of the customers. The company
have developed the research which helped the company to increase the sales it also
helped the company in crease the technology as it increase the efficiency of the company.
4. It also helps the company to increase the services to the customers so that they can
increase the quality of the products.
Finance
Unilever also have to analyse the finance of the company to it will allocate the funds of
the company to the right place which will help to increase the efficiency of the operations and
increase the growth of the company.
1. Finance department are responsible to maintain and evaluate the financial health of the
company so that the company can increase the growth of the company to compete in the
market and achieve the leadership of the market.
2. All the monetary policies are made by the finance managers, and they are responsible to
determine all the monetary transactions so that they can achieve efficiency by tracking
and decreasing the cost of the company.
3. Finance is also responsible to calculate all the activities into monetary values to
understand the impact on the profit margins.
Understanding of Collaborative Working Practices
Unilever have analysed that it is very essential to build a collaborative work environment
as it help the employees to increase their values and motivate themselves to achieve the
objectives of the company and also help to connect with the vision of the company.
2

1. Unilever have to understand the common point where all the employees share the same
values and it will help the company to create a collaborative work environment.
2. It will also help the company tom develop better communication with the employees as
all the employees will be motivated more effectively as it will help the company to
increase the efficiency to achieve the objectives and increase the quality of their products.
3. It will also help the company to develop the team as there will be fewer disputes and it
will help the employees to support one another to increase the efficiency of the team and
achieve the team goals.(Doh, Husted and Yang, 2016)
4. Collaborative work practices will also help Unilever to increase and integrate all the
strengths of the employees for focusing on achieving the objectives of the company and
increase the customer satisfaction. The increase in the products efficiency will be
increased which will help the company to achieve the competitive advantage.
5. This will also help the employees to increase the creative ideas so that they can increase
the efficiency of the products, so that it can increase the market share to increase the
profitability in the market and grow the company more effectively.
6. It also promotes the values, ethics and moral of the employees which also develop the
interpersonal skills to give respect to every employee irrespective of their post and work.
This helped the company to grow as one unit rapidly.
7. As Unilever is the integration of different cultures and it also helps the company to
develop a collaborative work environment for the employees, as it helps the employees to
communicate outside the company effectively. This will increase the knowledge of the
company to formulate any effective ideas which can increase the efficiency of the
company.
8. It also helps the company to identify the performance of the employees in the company
and maintain their efficiency to reach the objectives of the company effectively.
(Cantwell, 2015)
9. The health of the employees is also maintained in the collaborative work practices which
also enables the employees to learn many skills and knowledge from different people
which make them more effective in performing their task in the company and increase the
efficiency to compete in the market.
3

Importance of Financial Management In Unilever
Unilever have analysed that the company have to adopt the fin financial management in
the company so that they can increase and evaluate all the monetary transaction which are related
to the company and it will also help the company to maintain the efficiency of the company. It is
the planning of all the capital transactions which will help the company to increase the efficiency
of the company and it will also help the company to maintain the quality of the company. (Doh,
McGuire and Ozaki, 2015)
Financial management is also very important as it supervises the allocation of the funds
to the effective areas which will increase the return of the operations and benefit the company.
The management is also helpful in organizing the structure of the company so that it can develop
the operations of the company and maintain the quality of the products with the cost efficiency.
This all help the company to develop the effective financial statement which will help t analyse
the financial position of the company. (Basak, 2016) The company will also learn the efficiency
and can increase the performance accordingly. The financial management also help to formulate
the financial annual reports which are issued for shareholders and investors. It also ensures that
the values displayed in the report are true and fair which increase the transparency of the
company. The company also increases the trust of the shareholders and investors on the
company. Financial management also help the company to distribute the profits to the
shareholders which are also the rightful partner in the profit of the company according to the
shares.
Financial management in Unilever helps to evaluate the efficiency of the employees and
calculate the amount of efforts in the form of monetary value which can be given to them as it
will help the company to motivate their employees and increase their performance as a whole.
The financial management also ensure that there is no wastage of the funds in the company to
increase the profitability and reinvest the money the market to gain effective growth and
efficiency of the market. This also help the company to be more effective to gain more funds to
fulfil their personal needs and increase their job satisfaction ion the company and increase their
loyalty to the company.(Alvarez, 2016)
4

CONCLUSION
This report had a detailed study about different departments of Unilever which help the
company to grow and increase its market position to attract more customers and increase their
satisfaction. Human resource help the company operate the activities and finance department
helped the company to manage the funds which is allocated to marketing to sell the products to
the customers and increase the profit margins of the company to archive the competitive
advantage.
5

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Alvarez, J.L. ed., 2016. The diffusion and consumption of business knowledge. Springer.
Basak, R., 2016. Corporate restructuring through demerger: a case study on Hindustan Unilever
Limited. International Journal of Business Ethics in Developing Economies. 5(2).
Cantwell, J., 2015. An introduction to the eclectic paradigm as a meta-framework for the cross-
disciplinary analysis of international business. In The eclectic paradigm (pp. 1-22).
Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Doh, J., Husted, B.W. and Yang, X., 2016. Guest editors’ introduction: Ethics, corporate social
responsibility, and developing country multinationals. Business Ethics Quarterly. 26(3).
pp.301-315.
Doh, J., McGuire, S. and Ozaki, T., 2015. The Journal of World Business Special Issue: Global
governance and international nonmarket strategies: Introduction to the special
issue. Journal of World Business. 50(2). pp.256-261.
Iannuzzi, A., 2017. Greener products: The making and marketing of sustainable brands. CRC
Press.
Mukiira, E.M and et.al, 2017. Effect of experiential marketing in building brand equity: A case
of selected Unilever Tanzania brands. International Journal of Supply Chain
Management. 2(1). pp.1-31.
Nazarova, V., 2015. Corporate Diversification Effect on Firm Value (Unilever Group Case
Study). Annals of economics and finance. 16(1). pp.173-198.
6