A Critical Evaluation of IT Management Practices at Unilever

This essay provides a comprehensive evaluation of Unilever's information technology (IT) management practices, focusing on IT planning, IT value, and IT evaluation/governance policies. It examines how Unilever aligns its IT infrastructure with corporate goals, utilizing a combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches in IT planning. The essay analyzes how the company measures the value of its IT system by quantifying the benefits of proposed projects. While Unilever's IT evaluation process promotes standardization, it also faces challenges such as reduced agility and slow decision-making. The essay concludes with recommendations for improvement, including building diverse leadership teams, prioritizing strategic decisions, adopting a management information system (MIS), increasing investment in cybersecurity, and promoting flexibility within the organization. This document is a student contribution and is available on Desklib, a platform offering a variety of study tools for students.

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Information Technology Management
Unilever

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In today’s competitive business world, organisations generate a competitive
advantage over their competitors by effectively managing information technology (IT) in the
company. Effective management of IT infrastructure in corporations resulted in increasing
the efficiency and quality of operations which generates competitive advantage for the
enterprise. In order to effectively utilise IT resources in the company, the corporations have
to put efforts into improving their IT planning policies (Eason, 2014). This essay will evaluate
the case of Unilever to evaluate the practices of the company implemented by its
management for IT planning and IT value. This essay will evaluate the IT
evaluation/governance policies of Unilever to analyse their effectiveness. The efficiency and
problems relating to IT infrastructure of Unilever will be analysed in this report. Lastly,
various recommendations will be made for Unilever which can be utilised by its
management to improve its IT system to improve its efficiency and security of data.
Unilever is a British-Dutch transnational consumer goods company which operates in
consumer goods industry. The operations of Unilever are situated across the globe, and its
headquarters is situated in London, United Kingdom and Rotterdam, Netherlands (Unilever,
2018a). The company offers a wide range of products for its customers that include foods,
beverages, personal care and cleaning agent products. The corporation relies on using
effective IT infrastructure and resources to promote and reinforce innovation in the
workplace. The company uses IT planning to clearly align the information technology with
corporate goals of the organisation. The management of Unilever focuses on driving IT-
based value in the company to increase efficiency in the workplace and promote quality in
operations. Effective IT evaluation is a key technique which is used by Unilever to ensure
that it is able to address the challenges relating to IT in the organisation (Prajogo & Olhager,
2012). The company relied on IT planning procedure to evaluate the key requirements in the
organisation which are addressed by using information technology tools which enable the
company expansion and success in emerging markets while capitalising on IT.
Information technology planning or IT planning is referred to a comprehensive plan
which outlines how the company should use IT infrastructure to meet business goals. This
system focuses on making the planning process of IT investments and decision making in
organisation more flexible, quicker and thoroughly aligned process (Yang, Chen & Wang,
2012). In recent years, corporations rely on strategic IT planning to ensure that they are able

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to effectively use their IT infrastructure to achieve corporate goals while ensuring the
security of their data. An effective IT plan comprises detailed information about the IT
resources and capabilities of the organisation which are used by the company to achieve its
strategic goals. In the case of Unilever, the company has adopted a combination of top-
down and bottom-up approach. In the top-down approach, all the project objectives,
information, plans, funds, and guidelines are established by the management and
expectation based on such evaluation is communicated down to each project participant. In
order to effectively implement this approach, the corporations are requiring extreme
process formality because any ambiguity can result in misunderstanding which resulted in
failure of the project. On the other hand, the bottom-up approach relies on proactive team
input in each step of management and project executing process (Biswas et al., 2012). In this
approach, the whole team is invited by the company to involve in the decision-making
process to determine the course of action. The management of Unilever has implemented a
combination of both approaches in IT planning procedure due to its large size.
The company is a global business which represents more than 40 brands which
include Knorr, Lipton and Dove, each of which has its own target market (Willan, 2017). To
ensure that efficiency in the operation is maintained, the management of Unilever focuses
on combining the two approaches to ensure that timely decision is made to address the
challenges faced by the company. For instance, in the top-down approach, the CEO of the
company allocates 2 percent of the revenue for IT. Further, this fund is allocated to each IT
department in different branches and brands of the company by its CIO in consultation with
the directors. This fund is distributed not just for new projects but for run/maintenance as
well. On the other hand, the bottom-up approach runs parallel in the company as well.
Different IT teams in the company partner with their business stakeholder while forming IT
plans. For example, the directors, project managers and Finance IT team with finance team
work together to make an exact list of project while forming IT policies and prioritise each of
them (McDonalds, 2016). This list is made after the CIO of the company allocates the budget
across different projects in the company. Thus, it results in increasing the quality of decision
taken by the managing in the IT planning process. However, the key challenge relating to
this process is that it takes a long time for the management to make this list especially in
case of different departments.

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IT value is referred to the value which is derived by a company from its IT system.
The IT value is intangible which makes it difficult to calculate the value of IT system of a
company. The management of Unilever focuses on driving innovation in the organisation by
leveraging on the value of its IT system. The company focuses on measuring the value of its
IT infrastructure by evaluating different factors (Prajogo & Olhager, 2012). For instance,
each project in Unilever is substantiated with a business case that quantifies the benefits of
the proposed project in terms of resources, time, money and others. By quantifying these
aspects, it becomes easier for the company to determine the value of its IT system which
assists the company in measuring whether its IT plans are effectively working or not (Davids,
2016). Moreover, the company values its IT infrastructure by providing appropriate facilities.
For instance, while working on a specific division in the company, the first year service is
free, and from second year the division is charged.
The service of first year is funded by IT investment board to increase the value of the
IT infrastructure of the company to ensure that each division of the corporation has access
to appropriate resources which are required for increasing efficiency and effectiveness of
the IT plans. Thus, Unilever values its IT infrastructure which assists the company in
promoting innovation in the workplace. For instance, the company has changed the way it
approaches various areas of the business such as recruitment and legal practices by relying
on IT infrastructures. The company uses a virtual reality system which increases the
efficiency of its recruitment process (McDonalds, 2016). The system interviews potential
graduates for jobs which resulted in reducing the recruitment process by a period of six
months. Therefore, the value of IT system assists Unilever in achieving its corporate goals
and ensures that the investment in IT infrastructure is beneficial for the organisation.
IT evaluation is referred to a process of determining the degree to which an IT
implementation resulted in facilitating and benefiting the work of individuals and
organisations. Investments made by organisations in IT are grown extensively and the
management worries regarding whether they are deriving appropriate benefits from the IT
as expected (Davids, 2016). The corporations rely on IT evaluation methods and
management to assess whether the IT system is successful in the company or not. Based on
this evaluation, the corporation is able to implement policies for IT governance to drive the
results in positive way. Unilever has provided a code of business principle and code policies

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which are mandatory to comply by the employees of the company. This code ensures that
the IT system of the company is responsibly and securely used by them to avoid the threat
of data theft. Various IT governance policies are given in this code by the management
which assists employees in effectively discharging their duties. For instance, it is provided
that the employees must not disable, defeat or circumvent standard security features in the
company or access, store or post any explicit data (Unilever, 2018b). Moreover, the
enterprise architect of Unilever approves the technology which is used by the company to
bring in standardisation across teams and globally. The infrastructure teams and other tech
teams in the company are responsible for deciding on the tech stack strategy for the entire
organisation. All these factors are implemented by the management of Unilever to promote
efficiency in the workplace which results in benefiting the company.
However, the IT infrastructure implemented by the corporation is not perfect, and
there are various discrepancies in its policies which resulted in increasing challenges for the
organisation. One of the key challenges faced by the company is standardisation of its IT
operations which resulted in bringing down agility in its operations (Eason, 2014). Due to its
large size, agility in operations is significant for the company to ensure that it is able to
adapt as per market changes, however, the standardization across teams resulted in
increasing challenges for the company by reducing its efficiency. Moreover, many internal
steps in the IT system are not clear. Since Unilever is a large enterprise, there are too many
steps which the employees and management have to comply with when it comes to IT
planning, IT value and IT evaluation (Gallant, 2014). Another key issue is that the company is
too structured which resulted in slowing down its decision-making process. Due to the slow
process, it becomes difficult for the company to change as per emerging market trends and
adopt new technologies in its IT system.
In order to address these issues, the corporation can improve its IT infrastructure
based on following recommendations. The management of Unilever should build diverse
leadership teams in order to bring agility in its IT operations. Since the company operates
across the globe, a diverse leadership approach will assist the company in adopting as per
emerging changes and implement policies which resulted in increasing efficiency in the
workplace. The corporation should prioritise its strategic decisions regarding IT
infrastructure and promote quick decision making. To promote quick decision making, the

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corporation should reduce the number of internet steps. The management of Unilever
should remove unnecessary steps in order to increase the decision-making process which
will enable its management to take quick decisions based on emerging trends. The
corporation should adopt management information system (MIS) which should focus on
removing communication barriers which resulted in increasing the speed of decision-making
process of the company (Chae, Koh & Prybutok, 2014). The investment in cyber security
policies should be increased by the company to ensure that its confidential data and
sensitive data of customers are protected. The company should use processes such as
encryption, firewalls and others to ensure the security of its data. The management of
Unilever should also promote flexibility in the organisation by avoiding unnecessary
formalities and processes which resulted in increasing the time incurred in decision-making
process. The management should invest more time in IT planning process to ensure that it is
able to increase the value of IT infrastructure by making the process more agile.
In conclusion, the significance of implementation of effective IT system has increased
across the globe and corporations focus on implementing effective IT policies to achieve
their organisational goals. The management of Unilever has implemented an IT system
which promotes efficiency in its operations by aligning the system with corporate goals of
the company. The company has implemented a combination of top-down and bottom-up
approach in its IT planning procedure to increase its IT value. The company quantifies the
benefits of its IT system to calculate its value in the organisation. The IT evaluation process
of the company standardized which reduces agility. The efficiency of the company is also
reduced due to a large number of internal steps and structured process. However, these
issues can be addressed by the company by removing communication barriers by
implementing MIS. The corporation should remove unnecessary step to avoid
standardization and promote agility. The corporation should implement cyber security
policies to improve its data security and the privacy of its customers. Moreover, the
company can increase efficiency by avoiding unnecessary steps from IT systems and
investing in IT planning procedure to find new solutions that result in sustaining the growth
of the company.

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References
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