Logistics and Supply Chain Management: Analysis of UNILEVER

This report delves into the realm of supply chain management, defining it as the intricate network connecting individuals, organizations, resources, and technology to facilitate the creation and delivery of goods and services. It emphasizes the critical role of supply chain management in ensuring the seamless flow of products from producers to consumers, thereby supporting market trade. The report outlines key goals of supply chain management, including cost-saving, improving on-time delivery, ensuring product quality, increasing fill rates, and reducing inventory. It then explores these goals in detail, discussing cost-saving strategies, the importance of product quality, and the significance of fill rates and inventory management. The report also examines the three decision phases of supply chain management: strategy, planning, and operations, using the UNILEVER Company as a case study. It describes how UNILEVER approaches each phase, considering factors like long-term expectations, customer demand, and practical execution. In conclusion, the report underscores the vital role of supply chain management in promoting business activities and highlights the importance of effective planning and strategizing in the context of market demands and preferences. This report is available on Desklib, which offers past papers and solved assignments.

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Logistics and supply chain management
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Logistics and supply chain management
Introduction
The term supply chain can be defined as the network of connections between individuals,
organizations, resources, and technology to create goods and services for sales thus from the
delivery source to the consumers in the market (Copacino, 2019, pg. 445). Supply chain
management has been considered by most of the producers and consumers in the market to be
much important for the whole business process since it ensures delivery of goods and services
from the producer to the user successfully without breaching goods or services delivered (Hugos,
2018, pg. 776). It ensures the availability of goods and service in the market, therefore, can be
considered as one of the key elements of trade in the market.
Goals of supply chain
Supply chain, that is the process of delivering goods and services from the producer to the
user within the market has been linked to various goals which include saving money, improving
on-time delivery of goods and services, ensuring quality of products being supplied, increasing
the fill and to reduce the rate of inventory (Christopher, 2016, pg. 753). The above-mentioned
goals are discussed in the context below.

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Cost-saving and the quality of products delivered
Cost-saving is one of the logical supply chain goals where the management of the
organization has to take into consideration the exact cost of supplying resources to the market or
to the buyer in which should be economical to the management body. The management body of
the manufacturing firm can choose from a wide range of cost-saving techniques like seeking out
and procuring a lower-priced product without considering the quality of the product. By doing
so, the unit price will be automatically reduced but the quality of the product will be
compromised. The quality of the product delivery or order should be high and standardized to the
organization despite the cost of the delivery, therefore; quality being one of the goals of the
supply chain, the management body has the responsibility of ensuring the quality of the products
orders are in accordance to the customers’ preference.
Fill rate and inventory values
According to Brandenburg, Gruchmann and Oelze (2019, pg. 7230), fill rate can be
summarized as the percentage of outgoing orders that have been completed on time by the
organization. Fill rate plays an important function in the organizations' management in ensuring
timely delivery of the ordered packages to the market by the organization since it accounts for
the percentage orders the organization has delivered to the customers or the market successfully
in time. Fill rate contributes to the positive ratings of the organization by the market thus
following successful and timely delivered products hence contributes to the marketability of the
firm.

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The inventory values of the organization refer to the process of determining the cost of
goods which have not been supplied by the organization. The supply chain’s major goal is to
reduce the inventory values of the organization to increase the percentage of the packages
supplied to the market on time which are some of the basic factors for profitability and continuity
of the business.
Supply chain decision phases
The supply chain decision phases consist of the three major phases which include supply
chain strategy, planning and operations. The company chosen under the discussion of the
decision phases involving the supply chain is the UNILEVER Company which is the third-
largest supply chain company in the world based in British.
Supply chain strategy
In this phase, the management body of UNILEVER Company in consideration of the areas
like long haul expectation which combines factors like cost of the goods that are exceptionally
costly to the company in the event of uncertainty, therefore, decisions are made based on the
resources available for the delivery and other factors which might occur in the event of the
delivery process (Attadjei, Madhwal and Panfilov, 2018, pg. 158).

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Supply Chain planning
UNILEVER Company management bases their planning on the demand and preferences of
their customers and the market to ensure the delivery process are done according to customers’
demand. They have to consider various methodologies in ensuring that their customers’ demand
is well catered for. In summary, the whole planning phase incorporates every step to be taken by
the organization in ensuring delivery of the packages following the market demand and
preferences (Azad, Aazami, Papi and Jabbarzadeh, 2019, pg. 42).
Supply chain operations
In this decision phase, practical decisions which have been made by the management are put
into practice that is to limit the vulnerability and execution advancement in delivering the
packages to the market. The phrase summarizes all the strategies and plans made in the previous
phases by the organization to ensure the continuous flow of the delivery process.
Conclusion
Supply chain management plays an important role in ensuring the safe and timely delivery
of goods and services to the market thus promotes business activities in the economy. The
discussed phases above are also important to the UNILEVER Company in arranging, planning
and strategizing on the supply chain process according to the market demand and preferences.

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References
Attadjei, D.D., Madhwal, Y. and Panfilov, P.B., 2018. A decision phases of a supply chain
management: A proposed decision support system to boost organizational decision making.
International Journal of Engineering and Technology (UAE), 7, pp.157-159.
Azad, N., Aazami, A., Papi, A. and Jabbarzadeh, A., 2019, July. A two-phase genetic algorithm
for incorporating environmental considerations with production, inventory and routing decisions
in supply chain networks. In Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation
Conference Companion (pp. 41-42).
Brandenburg, M., Gruchmann, T. and Oelze, N., 2019. Sustainable Supply Chain Management—
A Conceptual Framework and Future Research Perspectives. Sustainability, 11(24), p.7239.
Christopher, M., 2016. Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson UK.
Copacino, W.C., 2019. Supply chain management: The basics and beyond. Routledge.
Hugos, M.H., 2018. Essentials of supply chain management. John Wiley & Sons.