Analyzing Unilever's Product Innovation and Management Strategies

This report examines Unilever's product innovation and management strategies, focusing on its beauty and personal care product line, particularly the Dove brand. It includes a current situation analysis covering environmental, category, and competitive aspects, along with a SWOT analysis and product analysis. The report discusses the product hierarchy, target audience values, and product life cycle. A gap analysis identifies areas for improvement, and recommendations are made for Unilever to enhance its product development, including diversification strategies to cater to consumer demands for more variety and innovation. The analysis emphasizes the importance of quality, sustainability, and competitive pricing to maintain market stability and growth.

The Innovation and Product
manager

TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................4
PART A...........................................................................................................................................4
Background..................................................................................................................................4
PART B: Current Situation analysis................................................................................................5
Environment analysis..................................................................................................................5
Category analysis.........................................................................................................................5
Competitive analysis...................................................................................................................5
Swot Analysis..............................................................................................................................6
Product analysis...........................................................................................................................7
Hierarchy of values in relation to the target audience.................................................................7
Product life cycle.........................................................................................................................8
Product Gap analysis...................................................................................................................8
PART D: Recommendation.............................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The product manager is responsible for innovate the company product and can create a
uniqueness in the market which can increased the demand of the product widely. The report has
highlighted the Unilever company's beauty and personal care product line where a particular
beauty care product is Dove which is one of the best brand the market demands for product in
wider range. Also, it explained how the company can have been able to increase the demand of
the product and which strategies the product manager can implement for the further growth.

INTRODUCTION
The term innovation means a unique ideology where a product and service is renewed
and add some new techniques which create a new value. The creation of this value is defines
as innovation. In the process of bringing the innovation the product manager is responsible in
the overall success of brining the innovation in any product and service. The Unilever is one
of the leading organization who deals in food, well-being vitamins, personal care, beauty
products and such more. The company is able to maintain their particular product line of the
personal care and beauty products where they are also able to make the product develop
successfully in the future existence (Joung, Jung, and et.al., 2018). A report will illustrate the
company appropriate product development strategy which helps them to grow in the future
areas.
MAIN BODY
PART A
Background
Unilever is a multinational organization who provides the different products and services
which fulfil the daily needs and requirements of an individual person. This is located at London,
United Kingdom where the company owns 400 brands with an excellent turnover in 2020 of 51
billion euros. The company was founded by the Lover Brothers in 1929. Today, the company
Unilever has become of the best leading organization in world-wide. The company has wide
range of multiple products where their beauty and personal care products are very the company
can be able manage this product line appropriately. Personal care products includes the cleansing
pads, colognes, deodorant, facial tissue, lip gloss, lip sticks, lotion, make-up, pasteurizer and
such more products where the company Unilever manufacture and sales the products in wider
areas (Allen, Chandrasekaran, and et.al., 2018). They produce the products which do not harm
the people skin and body such as Dove and provides the good result which helps them to
increase their sales widely. The company believes in providing the cosmetics and personal care
products have to be qualitative and can differ from different brand company so that the sale of
the Unilever products can be increased and can obtain the maximum profit and outcome.

PART B: Current Situation analysis
Environment analysis
It is the process of identifying the factors that puts the direct and indirect impact on the
business. The company Unilever has wide range of the products where they have to keep focus
on the protection of the environment and maintain the sustainability at their organization so that
they can be able to increase their growth and attract the consumer widely. In the production of
the personal and beauty care products the company has to keep focus on the area of not harming
the environment heavily to make the skin care products.
Category analysis
The product category analysis is the process of determine the product categories in the
detailed manner which helps to understand the product demand in the market (Arundel, Bloch,
and et.al., 2019). The company has categorized their products in many and different ways where
they deal in food, personal care, beauty products, well-being vitamins, minerals and supplements
and such more.
Competitive analysis
The term competitive analysis is the process of identifying the competitors in the market
which helps the company to understand and brief about the different company products and
serveries knowledge. It has been known that Unilever has multiple of competitors in the market
who are putting their best efforts to make their company more successful than the Unilever. The
company has to implement the competitive analyse which will helps them to recognize and
identify their competitors rivalry in business market. Here, mentioning the porter five force
analysis which will help the company to identify their competitors efficiently.
Competitive Rivalry Today, there are many organizations who are dealing in
consumer good where the Unilever company has to identify
the competitor in the market. Opening of too many consume
goods company is a risk and competition for the Unilever as
consumers can easily switch from one place to another by
looking at their affordability and satisfaction.
Bargaining power of supplier The Unilever provides the quality personal care products so
that they are able to keep the prices of the product expensive

and high as the consumer wants the quality products so that
they have to purchase the personal are product from the
Unilever inly and cannot be as for them to look and purchase
the product from any another company as it will different in
the quality. The company can get the competition if some
company provides the quality products with affordable range
likewise the Unilever (Albort-Morant and et.al., 2018).
Bargaining power of buyer There is a bargaining power of consumer which can affect
the Unilever company as the personal care and beauty
products market is quite huge where there are many
organizations who are dealing in cosmetics. Consumer can
bargain the prices from the company and if they not
negotiate the consumer has a power to switch and purchase
the product from any different organization.
Threat of being substituted As, Unilever deals in various home utilization products
where the cosmetics have a huge market. The company can
be able to be substituted from any other company cosmetic
products die to low pricing structure and availability which
will allow the consumer to switch which results the Unilever
to have a threat of being substituted (Guo, Zhou, and et.al.,
2020).
Threat of new entrants Nowadays, there are so many new entrance or launching of
the organization take place where this organization has been
opened by the new generation people or youth who has
innovated ideas for marketing and other strategies which can
create a difficulty for the Unilever to maintain their stability
and growth accordingly.

Swot Analysis
Strength
The company Unilever has multiple variety of
the beauty and personal care products which
are the strength for them from which their
customer does not have to look for any other
organization.
Weakness
The Unilever company has expensive products
which can create an issue for them to increase
their consumer scale.
Opportunity
The company has an opportunity to grow more
as they have multiple brands and products at
their company.
Threat
Due to expensive pricing structure the
company has threat to loses the potential
consumer.
Product analysis
Product Hierarchy
Product Need: The beauty and personal care product of the Unilever is a need of the people to
maintain and take care of their skin health.
Family: The family of the personal care product has a point of view to satisfy the need of the
people where Dove brand is the most usable and best product of the Unilever.
Class: The Unilever has large variety of the beauty products where it includes the soaps,
cosmetics, hygiene products and such more.
Line: The personal care products of the Unilever provides to maintain the proper hygiene and
especially targets the female to utilize their products.
Type: The personal care products have huge number of varieties which includes the axe, dove,
lifebuoy, rexona and many more.
Item: The specific product of beauty care of the Unilever company is Dove which is a soap for
the women to provide the proper hygiene and beauty to their skin.
Hierarchy of values in relation to the target audience
The Unilever company mainly focus on their target audience and provides the
satisfaction to them so that they can be able to increase their sales and outcome definitely (Reim,
Sjödin, and Parida, 2018). The company provides the beauty care products to their target people
where whenever they launch any new product they pre-informed the people which creates a

demand in the market previously. They also offer some vouchers and discounts on the new
launched products so that it will satisfy the consumer needs and can provide the effective results
to them.
Product life cycle
Development: The beauty care products of the Unilever company has to create a definite stage
to build their brand successful in the market areas. At the development stage, the company has
focused on the consumer needs and requirement so that they can be able to formulate the product
which can provide the effective outcome. The Unilever has observed that people require quality
and healthy skin care and personal care products so that they can be able to stay protected from
the harmful chemicals that can harm their body with allergies.
Introduction: This stage is of the fist launching of the product in the market where the company
has to build the awareness among people (Zuhdi, Rainanto, And et.al., 2020). The raw materials
of the product should be in quality form and quite interesting and attractive so that consumer can
be easily get attracted towards the new launched personal care product of the Unilever.
Growth: Now, this stage is to make the proper growth of the product which can be done through
art design of the packaging area which can attract the consumers easily.
Maturity stage: In order to launch the product, company has to keep the focus on delivering
safe and healthy products and also should have done a quality test at laboratories which will
ensure the consumer to use the products freely.
Declining stage: When each step of product life cycle is completed now it's time to check the
entire process accurately. If it has been evaluated that the product is at declining stage then they
should think of new strategies and marketing levels to create a growth.
PART C: Gaps and Objective
Product Gap analysis
Current state: The current state of the beauty and personal care product of the Unilever
company is good where they are able to attract the consumers widely and can make the profit
excellently. The company also providing the multiple products for men, women and children
where they mainly target the women for their beauty products (Sekletsova, and Comarcheva,
2020).

Desired state: The desired stage refers the consumer expectation and needs from the Unilever
company where consumer are looking more innovation and attractiveness into their products so
that they will be very much satisfied with their products.
Gap: It has been known that beauty cosmetics and personal care products have a huge market
where the company can be able to become more successful but as the products ranges increases
it also increases the consumer demands and expectation where the company has to fulfil that
gaps. The consumer has demanded the more shade of colours in beauty cosmetics on such
particular product such as lip colour, eye shades and such more (JOHN-EKE, and EKE, 2020).
Remedies: the company has to keep their focus on the public and consumer demands and can
fulfil their needs by implementing the different shades and colours in the beauty products.
The company Unilever should have required to keep their focus on the growth and development
area of the particular product line where the diversification strategy is one the best method
Unilever can use for the growth. Diversification leads the company to deliver their products and
services in geographical manner and for all age type which will benefit the company in efficient
manner and grow the beauty and personal care line at definite level.
PART D: Recommendation
Today, the entire world is following the trends and wants to look good at any time. It has
been recommanded that the Unilever company should focus on the customers as they are
demanding and expecting the more products in the personal and beauty care products where the

company Unilever has required essentially to plan and implement their innovation in making the
more variety of the products which can satisfy the needs and expectation of the consumers. The
consumers are also looking for the products which has been manufactured by using the natural
things and supplements from which their skin cannot be got harmed from the toxic chemicals
which has been used in the production of the products (Castaneda, Ostrosi, and et.al., 2020).
Even, the recent pandemic Covid19 has made the people to be aware of their health and hygiene
areas where now they look for the substances and products which cannot harm them widely.
This environmental disease has made the company to suffer from an obstacle where they were
not able to manufacture and deliver their beauty and personal care products to the consumers.
From the environmental disease, Unilever has to make the plan and strategic deal with these
areas and issues and can enable their growth and stability in the market. Fulfilling the needs and
requirement of the consumers is the only way to keep the development of the company and
specific product branch from which the company cannot get difficulties in these kinds of issues
as well.
CONCLUSION
The report has concluded the brief about the chosen company and its particular product
line. It has included the different types of analysis which helps an individual to understand the
mentioned company product line. It included category analysis, competitive and swot analysis,
product analysis. The report also mentioned the product life cycle and provided some
recommendation which can help them to develop their product demand.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Marketing. 82(2), pp.106-123.
Arundel, A., Bloch, C. and et.al., 2019. Advancing innovation in the public sector: Aligning
innovation measurement with policy goals. Research Policy. 48(3), pp.789-798.
Castaneda, R.R., Ostrosi, and et.al., 2020, May. A method to explore product risk in product
lifecycle management of configured products. In Proceedings of the design society:
DESIGN conference. (Vol. 1, pp. 687-696). Cambridge University Press.
Guo, Z., Zhou, and et.al., 2020. Applications of virtual reality in maintenance during the
industrial product lifecycle: A systematic review. Journal of Manufacturing
Systems. 56, pp.525-538.
JOHN-EKE, E.C. and EKE, J.K., 2020. Strategic planning and crisis management styles in
organizations: a review of related literature. Journal of Strategic Management. 5(1),
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Joung, J., Jung, and et.al., 2018. Customer complaints analysis using text mining and outcome-
driven innovation method for market-oriented product development. Sustainability.
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Reim, W., Sjödin, D. and Parida, V., 2018. Mitigating adverse customer behaviour for product-
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Sekletsova, O.V. and Comarcheva, O.S., 2020, January. Assessment of Competitiveness as a
Factor of Enterprise Development. In First International Volga Region Conference on
Economics, Humanities and Sports. (FICEHS 2019) (pp. 238-242). Atlantis Press.
Zuhdi, S., Rainanto, B.H. Andet.al., 2020. Analysis of Co-Branding Strategy to Improve
Company’s Competitive Power.