BM 561: Business Consulting - Unilever's Key Issues and Strategies

This business consulting report examines Unilever's key challenges, including supply chain management, innovation, and employee retention. The analysis includes a brief overview of Unilever's operations, its market position, and its competitors. Research highlights issues such as ineffective communication, negative company culture, and the need for better innovation strategies. The report identifies the top three problems facing Unilever: supply chain inefficiencies, lack of innovation, and employee retention difficulties. It emphasizes the importance of addressing these issues to improve profitability, market share, and overall company performance. The report concludes by recommending that Unilever focus on implementing effective supply chain management practices, fostering a culture of innovation, and improving employee engagement to reduce turnover. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments for students.

BM 561 BUSINESS
CONSULTING

TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
A brief about the client and problem face by the client...............................................................3
Research on company, and analysis their competitors, market and target customers.................4
Top three problems or issue face by the company.......................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Business consultant is a profession where consultant advices, provide insight,
recommendations and information to help clients to reach their objective and solve their problem
(Newton., 2019). Unilever plc is a multinational company that deals in retail sector, located in
London UK and in this report the client company is Unilever. The report will include the
company problems which they are facing and by using the research the business consultant got
the information of the client company like their competitors, market and target audience and
some external environmental factor. Moreover, this report highlights the discussion on major
three issue that the company is currently facing.
MAIN BODY
A brief about the client and problem face by the client
Unilever is a British multinational company situated in United Kingdom. The company
offers a wider range of the products such as food, minerals & supplements, coffee, tea, personal
and beauty products, ice creams, soap etc. The company purpose is to create a sustainable living
common place. Unilever's motto is to look good, feel good and get more out of the life. Unilever
is the one of the largest consumer goods company in the world. Company's mission is to add
vitality to the life. Unilever value proposition is their branding as a provider of good quality
products and services at low or reasonable price. Their flexible pricing strategy and expertise in
distribution channels that manage and handle the nook and the corner of globe. Unilever operates
in 190 plus countries around the world, and they use digital marketing tools to reach customers
in more effective ways. There are many problems such as employees retention, human resources,
innovation, technology adaptation, supply chain management and other workplace issue faced by
the company.
Innovation: Unilever is face problem to create more innovative culture (Tidd, and Bessant.,
2018). Company struggling with innovation and innovation process is a top of the agenda for the
management but the idea of innovative culture look too frightening to company. Company have
fear of change, but in the current scenario, the customers want more and more innovative
products, or they attract by the innovative products.
Employees retention: the company face problem in retain its talented and valuable employees.
In company there are many workers and employees who left jobs due to dissatisfaction, no job

rotation etc. Which make high employees turnover ratio which impact on the company profits
(Singh., 2019).
Supply chain management: This is the one of the major issue face by the company, as they
operate in global market they face such issue. This is an important operation practise of the
company that is to manage the entire production flow of goods and services to increase quality,
customer experience, delivery and profitability.
Technology adaptation: Company also face problem in adapting new technology, as their
employees are not well-trained for the use of new technology so it affects business as well.
Human resource: company human resource management is not managed properly which
resulting employees are not satisfied with company working culture, so they are less motivated
towards work.
Time management: company is not focusing on time management which result in employees
missing their deadline etc.
Monitoring performance: company not expert in how to develop key performance indicator,
and not know about how they can avoid key pitfalls and how to best communicate KPI so that
they inform decision-making.
Research on company, and analysis their competitors, market and target customers
From the research from the secondary data such as newspaper, social media account,
article and past data as a consultant got to know about such problem which are face by the
company. From the research, company can know the main problem face by their employees,
there is no effective communication between the employees and management, so they feel less
motivated and that why company not retain their employees. Moreover, Unilever also have
negative company culture where employees not share their ideas and there is lack of diversity
and collaboration which affect company whole. Unilever competitors are Mars, GSK, Johnson
and Johnson, proctor & gamble and nestle USA. Mars company have high brand loyalty and
great packagings and taste, and there working culture is most effective and good time
management skills. GSK plc is multinational pharmaceutical company, located in London UK.
Company have good strength of employees, and they are the worlds the largest investor in
research and development. In the company there are good collaboration between the employees
and good team work. Neatly USA deals in food products, company has good supply chain
management which help to get success. Unilever target groups are households and individual.

Thus, company offer both low-medium price and premium price, so they target both group that is
low-middle income group with the reasonable price and premium products with premium price
for the high income group. So they attract new customers and retain existing customers.
Company market segment cover geographic, demographic, behavioural and
physiographic. Geographic segment- Europe, south Asia, Middle East, South America, North
America etc. Demographic segment such as 15 to 50 years, low- upper middle income, man and
women whereas behavioural segment includes patterns, benefits. Physiographic segment
includes factors like markers, believers, strivers and thinkers. Unilever penetration strategies is to
increase their market share and focuses on quality and price balance for customers. Oligopoly
market means a market which is dominated by small numbers of the suppliers (Wang, and
Werning, 2020). Unilever market structure is oligopoly because global market is dominated by
products and services such corporate as Procter & gamble, Unilever and neatly. In this market
barriers to new entry is high and threats are connected with the local players, here supplier power
influences quality of products and risk of switching is low. In this market number of competitors
is low, customers loyalty is important and competitive products ate of same quality. In this
market structure the threat of the substitute products is high and focus in innovation is needed to
survive in the market. Buyer power is important in this market, the numbers of the customers
influence profitability.
Top three problems or issue face by the company
Unilever facing many problems but the top three problems are as follows that company
must considered and focus to solve it.
Supply chain management: The company not have good supply chain management, company
face many challenges like excess inventory, miscommunication, maintain sustainability and
quality, managing suppliers etc. Excess innovation is a common supply chain issue, when there
is no demand but the company has inventory so this is the major issue (Nasiri, and et.al., 2020).
For example, company deal in food products also if they supply products but at that place there is
no such need then it may occur as huge loss. Effective supply chain management is very
important because it reduces time, costs and waste in production cycle. One of the most common
challenges of the global supply chain is sustainability and quality of products that made in other
countries.

Innovation: This is also a major issue face by the company because as Unilever deal in oligopoly
market so in this there are few suppliers so their threat of substitute can be reduced by the
innovation. Innovation is very important because by this company attract new customers and
influence investor. Innovation helps company to grow and get success and this also helps
company to get competitors advantage. Lack of innovation strategy create problem for the
company. So company can use effective innovation strategies to survive in the market and
generate profits and cover good market share. Innovation helps company to survive in the
market, by innovation company make great benefits. But company must take action timely to
survive in the market place otherwise they not connected with the customers.
Employees retention: There is big competition in the market for employees. In an organization
there is no effective communication that why employees are not feel confidence to share their
ideas and information (Banerjee., 2019). Because there is no effective communication in the
Unilever so employees are less motivated and not satisfied with the job which result in quitting
their jobs. If company not solve this problem then it will result in increases their employees
turnover which decrease the profits of the company. This is important because if company hire
new employees then it increases their cost of training etc. so company take action timely and use
KPI for measuring performance and give feedback accordingly.
CONCLUSION
From the above repost it concluded business consultant give advice to their client related
to the problem and how to deal with it. This report illustrated about a company and some
problems which company face such as employees retention, human resource, innovation,
technology adaptation, supply chain and more. The above report also include a short research
about the company problems and includes company competitors , target customers that is both
low level income group and high income group people. Company offer product at reasonable
price and premium product at high price. This report also highlight the market structure of the
company and furthermore this report highlight three problems that company must focus on and
take corrective action timely.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Banerjee, A., 2019. Failure of employee retention and its consequences on organization through
content analysis. International Journal of Research-Granthaalayah. 7(3). pp.200-207.
Nasiri, M., and et.al., 2020. Managing the digital supply chain: The role of smart
technologies. Technovation. 96. p.102121.
Newton, R., 2019. The Management Consultant. Pearson UK.
Rangone, A., 2020. Company logic and innovation strategy. In Managing Corporate
Innovation (pp. 129-153). Springer, Cham.
Singh, D., 2019. A literature review on employee retention with focus on recent
trends. International Journal of Scientific Research in Science and Technology. 6(1).
pp.425-431.
Tidd, J. and Bessant, J., 2018. Innovation management challenges: From fads to
fundamentals. International Journal of Innovation Management. 22(05). p.1840007.
Wang, O. and Werning, I., 2020. Dynamic oligopoly and price stickiness (No. w27536).
National Bureau of Economic Research.