Unilever PLC: A Case Study on Internal and External Business Impact

This case study provides an analysis of Unilever PLC, a British multinational company in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector, focusing on the internal and external factors that influence its business practices. The external analysis covers political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental (PESTLE) factors, highlighting Unilever's adherence to government regulations, handling of trade reforms, resilience during the pandemic, and investments in R&D and eco-friendly practices. The internal analysis uses a SWOT framework to identify Unilever's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, emphasizing its global reach, diversified product range, competitive pricing, and challenges from competitors and economic conditions. The study also examines Unilever's impact on the external environment, including its efforts in biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation, sustainable packaging, and ethical policies such as 'No testing on animals'. It concludes by referencing various research articles that support the analysis of Unilever's strategic business practices.

BUSINESS IN PRACTICE
Unilever PLC is a British Multinational company
dealing in Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG)
which include:
 Food beverages
 Water and air purifiers
 Beauty products
 Personal care and
 Home care
External factors affect Unilever:
Political factors:
 Unilever keeps up its products abide by the rules and regulations set
by the government (Birahim. 2020).
 It handles strict Trade Reforms made the new governments which
can make its foreign trade difficult.
Economic factors:
 Since Unilever's most of the products are necessities, the pandemic
situation barely affected the business.
 Unilever's products with a worldwide usage made the crises easy to
handle.
Social factors:
 Unilever is aware of its product's social demographics so it creates its
advertisements in various languages.
 The chosen company invests a huge amount in recognizing the unsaid desires
of its consumers.
Technological factors:
 Unilever uses setup facility with automated operations which saves their time
and costs.
 It also invests in R&D for innovations for its products.
Legal Factors:
 Each product and brand of Unilever follow: Health and Safety at Work
Act, 1947 and Copyright protection, etc.
 It also follows the taxation and trade policies laid by the government.
Environmental Factors:
 Unilever is considered as an Eco-friendly company.
 It is working constantly to make its plastic packaging 100% re-usable.
Internal factors affecting Unilever:
Strengths:
 The footprint global reach of Unilever
combined with worldwide base of consumers
is its major strength.
 It has a deep and broad portfolio of its brand
with diversified product range makes it easy to
tap consumer's changing preferences. It has a competitive advantage of flexible
pricing.
Weaknesses:
 Unilever's products can be easily exchanged
with substitutes. It faces huge competition with global giants
like P&G (Cheng, 2021).
Opportunities:
 Unilever can cease the opportunity to tap the
health conscious sector with its existing and
yet to be launched products range. It is working on producing Eco-friendly
products which gives it opportunity to tap the
ethical consumers' segment who prefer
sustainably competent products.
Threats:
 The shrinking of consumer's disposable
income due to global crises can affect its
profitability.
 Local products can tap a larger section of
market.
Unilever's impact on the external environment;
 Unilever has been working on developing various tools and
approaches to access the Biodiversity and Ecosystem services of its
products.
 The company is focusing on technologies that attempt to tackle the
climate change, reducing impacts of agriculture and eliminating
deforestation (Lieu and et.al.,).
 Unilever is working on making its packaging 100% re-usable.
 It has also adopted the 'No testing on animals' policy.
 It uses Life-cycle analysis techniques to find techniques to reduce
environmental impact of using, making and disposing of its
products.
 The company has been spreading awareness about sustainability
issues through their product innovations and designing process.
REFERENCES : Birahim, S.A., 2020. Internal and external factors of Nestle and comparison with Unilever.
Cheng, Y., 2021, February. Analysis on the Opportunities and Challenges of Unilever’s Differentiated Competition by Using SWOT and PEST. In 6th International Conference on
Economics, Management, Law and Education (EMLE 2020) (pp. 280-284). Atlantis Press.
Lieu, P.T.H. and et.al., Unilever Company Strategic Business Analysis.