Strategic Analysis of Unilever: Adapting to Retail Industry Trends

This report analyzes current trends in the retail industry, focusing on their impact on Unilever. The retail industry, a key player in the market, faces challenges related to customer behavior, technology, and the dynamic environment. The report examines the impact of COVID-19, demand flu...Read More

Inquiry based learning

Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Trends in retail industry.....................................................................................................................2
Aim of the company..........................................................................................................................5
Objective...........................................................................................................................................5
SWOT analysis:..................................................................................................................................5
Recommendations.............................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................8
References.............................................................................................................................................9
Books and journals............................................................................................................................9

Introduction
The report aims to analyse current Retail Industry trends following rapidly into market. Retail
Industry is one of the super leading into the market that works in every season and market
conditions. This industry is known for providing essential goods and services which are a
daily necessity for every individual. Current retail market is facing many challenges as well
as profitability also but it depend on various Trends and innovations that emphasis on their
growth (Barril, 2018). The trend related to customer behaviour, dynamic environment,
involvement of Technology and providing a vital experience of retailing. Retail Industry
mainly deals in food clothing, general merchandise beauty Essentials and many more. This
report is going to analyse what are the main Trends of Retail Industry and how it impact on
Unilever. The company e is the highest retailer into market with cells wide range of products
like soap, shampoo, detergent, food beauty care products and many more. It was established
in 1929. the company covers world wide area by undertaking 400 brands of consumer goods.
Therefore, it is going analyse company’s internal and external market through swot and pestle
analysis.
Trends in retail industry
Retail Industry is one of the rapidly growing sectors into the market. The industry is
contributing 5% profit in countries GDP. The industry is the role player of market as retailers
are the one who Promote direct selling and connect with customers in order to understand
their demands and needs and come up with those products and services which are required in
to market. Retail Industry has white operations as it deals in in number of varieties products
and follows fast fashion in terms of clothing accessories footwear and many more. Food
transport tourism and events, general Merchandise is a part of retail sector (Bui, and Khuu,
2020). There are a lot of challenges and issues faced by this industry due to having Global
serving the industry is prevailing highest competition in to market. It provides customers
satisfaction through adopting technology online selling which is the current main trend of
Retail Industry. People are now becoming more of social buyers through which demand for
fashion is rapidly changing into dynamic market. The main challenges faced by Retail
Industry are the prices of covid-19. It leads to serious decline in to the sales of retail sector
which is by 10%. The UK retail market has been facing challenges of Technology market
expansion and reaching to customers are creating obstacle for retail companies. Due to covid-
19, there are many allegations and restrictions have put on this industry which eliminates

import and export, lowest down investment, reduction in foreign investment, trade barriers
and much more. It is one of the major challenges as it is Stop sale in in EU countries and
lowest down the level of profitability. There are a lot of friends which are needs to be focused
and analyse for Retail Industry in the scenario of 2021. As covid-19 is still putting a lot of
influence on business market that must be identified and overcome with effective strategies.
Unilever is one of the oldest chains of retail industry which provide all of consumer goods
since 91 years. The company has aims to achieve highest customer satisfaction by providing
quality products at affordable prices with set brand name across the world. Therefore,
Unilever is also getting affected through retail Trends due to the situation of covid-19, this
trend are in following ways:
Demand fluctuation: the Retail Industry is known for vast trends and changes in products
and services, it is being the challenge for industry S covid-19 has impacted on the purchasing
power of customers through which purchase have lower down and people are stuck into their
home(Cartilla, and Rondina, 2020). Also demand is changing in terms of new as well as
designs Trends and fashion.
Digitalisation: it refers to providing goods and services through online platforms that
provide convenient deliveries and easy Payment procedure. Due to the pending make people
are not allowed to go outside and require daily Essentials at their doorstep so that Retail
Industry needs to come up with online selling to maintain their profitability and sale. online
selling is being necessity for every retailer into market to grow and expand their business in
order to exist into market. Unilever is undertaking high growth of E-commerce by providing
the products through various platforms like Amazon, Flipkart who deals in e commerce
purpose. It is the major Trend into retail sector as it found to be safest way to reach customers
directly and maintain all the norms of social distancing. Unilever undertake number of friends
by which they promote and sell products through online at various sites as well as on website.
There are challenges of Technology and brexit policies which impact on Retail Industry. As
retailers are demand to adopt easiest way of Technology and make their service more
convenient. Ever-changing demand of customer makes grow in competition due to which you
never need to be very accurate in analysing customer requirement by effective research
procedure( Fatkhriyah, 2019). It requires use of Artificial Intelligence and CRM approaches
to gain insight about customer actions through internet and Technology. These are the vital

Trends that fulfilled by Unilever but needs to be more effective as the business environment
is being dynamic day by day that may bring uncertainty and risk at any point of time.
Aim of the company
Unilever want to establish a great brand name by giving utmost customer satisfaction. Giving
quality and quantity within the easiest pricing policies and a sustainable development is the
major aim of Unilever.
Objective
 Unilever wants to achieve 20% more sales through online platforms.
 The company wants to adopt more effective Technologies to reach number of
customers and fulfil market requirement.
 Expansion and enlargement of product through using organic and healthy sustainable
SWOT analysis:
Strength Weakness
Unilever has a renowned position and brand
value into market which enables trust and
configuration of customers to purchase
products and services (Goodsett, 2020).
 The company has great way of
achieving objectives of quality and
sufficient quantity that provide
satisfaction and utility.
 The company sells product at
reasonable prices and customers are
fond of the quality and
standardization in two products.
 Unilever is contributing in great
Economics of scale through balancing
demand and supply into market.
 Unilever has one of the major
weakness is their product are highly
imitable that could be an advantage
for new and existing competitors to
acquire high market share.
 The company does not mainly believe
in direct selling and depend on
retailers which reduce profitability as
it divides among mediators.
 The company is not effectively work
on diversification which reduces
chances of collaboration and brand
awareness.
 The company does not value
innovation into the operation as their
products are out of fashion and results
in dead stock.

Opportunity Threat
 Unilever has capabilities to exploit
market in covid-19 Crisis by
innovating products into health
beneficiaries.
 High opportunity to gain
technological advantage to enhance
economical condition of country and
promote development.
 Product diversification is a great
opportunity for Unilever as the
company enjoy great financial
stability and support of market
intermediaries to expand and reach to
other part of world.
 Promotions and collaboration are
great opportunities through social
media marketing which boost brand
awareness and market development.
 The company is severely influenced
by competition and Retail Industry
has many opportunities for new
players and market developers.
 Less product diversification leads to
less market opportunities which could
only be come through innovation and
valuable products.
 As the Unilever undertake number of
brands enhance their market
capabilities and lower down
companies owned brand
name(Guenther, Bennett, and Arriola,
2017).
 Unilever product are imitable which
is also becoming a threat as it gave
rise to availability of substitute that
main shift customers demand to the
next best cheap alternative.
Recommendations
As per the evaluation of current trends in Retail Industry, there are various challenges
and benefits are revealing into this industry. As retail sector works on large level and
ascertain great profitability and enable customer satisfaction by connecting with them
directly. Therefore, retail sector is highly affected through covid-19 pandemic and its
consequences on demand supply and sales. Technology consumer changing demands are
been the most vital trends in retail sector as the products get changed quite often as per
customer requirement. The trends in legal industry need to be followed to enable long term
existence as well as profitability in the market. By seeing the competition and threats
common Retail Industry is highly required to enable changes into organisation operation to

be e in different and unique from others. As retail organisation are mainly deal in similar kind
of product categories with some change in price as per quality and quantity. ( Nasution, and
Ningrum, 2019). This factor also affect customers purchasing decisions as there are various
options and availability of substitute first off you never needs to maintain its brand image and
grow into Market by taking competitive advantage. So that they need to work on the Trends
of the industry in following manner:
 Unilever is working and enabling operations for providing varieties of consumer
goods that satisfy consumer requirement and their utility. Unilever believe in great
customer satisfaction and their retention for which they make product as per people
income demo graphical changes, culture and values that makes the company the
highest Undertaker of market share. As Unilever is also facing crisis due to covid-19
they need to come up with more influenced strategy to attract customers and reach to
their demands. The essential products are never gone out of style. people could only
shift their demand so that it is better to not give them an option for choosing
alternative and be preparing to increase profit margins and business success. This
could only be done through slowing down cost of production through analysing
mistakes and ascertain prompt changes. It is recommended to analyse market demand
appropriately and make a balance between consumer fluctuations (Yulkifli, 2019). To
maintain large stock and be able to accept changes in dynamic environment must be
the main criteria of Unilever in order to eliminate the challenges and issues.
 In order to attract large number of people and boost brand awareness, Unilever is
recommended to provide sustainable solutions of business activities that influence
customers to be a part of organisation. This could be done through making products
which are Highly Effective in boosting immunity, as people are becoming more
health conscious who are ready to invest in healthy product substances so that Kama
Organic products are the solution to attract existing and new customers again. Also
the company needs to provide essential services like Charity donations support during
prices by regulating essential goods for needy people. This strategy will work
positively on Unilever to be the most leading retailer into market.
 The company needs to adaptive mode of direct selling through digital marketing by
operating through apps and website. It will enhance more brand name of Unilever
people find it easy to order and take deliveries for which product they want.

Conclusion
The report has concluded that little industry was the major leader into market as their
products are in number of varieties and has capabilities to make balance in in changing
business environment. Retail Industry is reading anonymously day by day in terms of small
medium and large Enterprises. Therefore, there are a lot of opportunities as well as threats
into the industry. competition is one of the major factor that influence on retailers which must
be minimised by being unique and imitable into market. The report has provided an analysis
of Unilever as they have Global brand name and quality standard products which retain their
customers. Therefore two face current and upcoming changes of covid-19 there are some
recommendations provided into the report which will be helpful to enable better strategies
and grow company in a better manner.

References
Books and journals
Barril, L., 2018. Assessment for Culturally Inclusive Collaborative Inquiry-Based Learning.
In Handbook of Distance Education (pp. 311-320). Routledge.
Bui, L.T.N. and Khuu, V.T., 2020. Inquiry-based learning: an effective approach to teaching
science aiming to develop students’ competencies. Vietnam Journal of
Education, 4(1), pp.61-68.
Cartilla, E.J. and Rondina, J.Q., 2020. Enhancing Teachers’ Pedagogical Practice in
Mathematics Through 5E Model Focused Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) on
Learning Action Cell (LAC) Session. American Journal of Educational
Research, 8(6), pp.416-419.
Fatkhriyah, R.Y., 2019. Inquiry-Based Learning: An Attempt to Enhance Students’ Speaking
Performance. Jurnal Pendidikan: Teori, Penelitian, dan Pengembangan, 4(7),
pp.912-922.
Goodsett, M., 2020. Inviting Students into the Kitchen: Inquiry-Based Learning as a Critical
Thinking Instructional Strategy.
Guenther, M., Bennett, K. and Arriola, P., 2017. Application of unknowns in organismal
biology laboratories to encourage inquiry‐based learning. The FASEB Journal, 31,
pp.lb14-lb14.
Nasution, V.Y. and Ningrum, M.V., 2019, October. The analysis of students worksheet
development using inquiry based learning models with science technology society
approach for physics learning of senior high school class XI. In Journal of
Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 1317, No. 1, p. 012169). IOP Publishing.
Yulkifli, Y., 2019, July. Development of Student Worksheets Using Inquiry Based Learning
Model with Scientific Approach to Improve Class X High School Physics
Competence. In MISEIC 2019.