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119	119	|1929|Hartog joins Margarine Union in January; Equalisation Agreement signed between Lever Brothers Limited and NV Margarine Union on 2 September
120	120	|1930|Unilever came into being on 1 January
121	121
	122	+== Corporate profile ==
122	122
	124	+The company came into being in 1929 through the merger of Lever Brothers and Margarine Union/Unie. It is today’s FMCG giant that has over 400 brands available in 190 countries. The group has 300 factories of its own and another 700 third-party manufacturers. An estimated 2.5 billion people globally use Unilever’s products and brands.
123	123
	126	+Unilever operates in the consumer goods industry. The company produces and markets home care, personal care, foods and refreshment products. The personal care product line includes skincare, deodorants, hair care and oral care products. The home care segment provides powder, liquids, capsules, soap bars and so on. The foods and refreshment segment offers soups, bouillons, sauces, snacks, mayonnaise, salad dressings, margarine, and spreads. The refreshment segment provides ice creams and tea-based beverages. Largest selling brands of the company are Aviance, Axe/Lynx, Ben & Jerry's, Dove, Flora/Becel, Heartbrand, Hellmann's, Knorr, Lipton, Lux/Radox, Omo/Surf, Rexona/Sure, Sunsilk, Toni & Guy, TRESemmé, VO5 and Wish-Bone.{{footnote}}https://www.devex.com/organizations/unilever-48862{{/footnote}}
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	128	+Headquarter of the company is located in Unilever House 100 Victoria Embankment. The company is currently headed by Alan Jope, Chief Executive Officer and Director. Share price of the company hovers around £35 as on April 2022. Market capitalization of the company as on 1 April, 2022 is £90 billion. The company has about 30 acquisitions/subsidiaries.
	129	+
	130	+= Business strategy =
	131	+
	132	+Vision of the company is to be the global leader in sustainable business. The business purports to demonstrate how their purpose-led, future-fit business model drives superior performance, and consistently delivers financial results in the top third of the industry.
	133	+
	134	+Business strategy is what makes a company stands out and it is what made Unilever a world-renowned company from a merged operation. The marketing strategy of Unilever is that it integrates its global strategies with the local community. The consumers are attracted since they get a hold on to the local essence of the products. Unilever’s marketing is rooted in ‘a brand with a purpose’. The tagline of Surf Excel, for example, is ‘dirt is good’. This has helped the brand foster in different forms. At the same time, the case of Brooke Bond Red Label depicted how a social conversation over a cup of tea (or perhaps just a sip) could bring a change in the social views of the tea lover. Therefore, due to such creative methods, Unilever’s brands, despite being one of the oldest, have continued to gain consumers’ confidence.{{footnote}}https://thestrategystory.com/2021/05/19/unilever-business-strategy/{{/footnote}}
	135	+
	136	+Unilever keeps sustainability at the heart of its business. It focuses on sustainable living plan for its consumers as well as climate change. The company has understood the importance of sustainability and incorporated it in all its work procedures and practices. The company believes in gender equality and has actively managed to maintain it throughout the recent decade. In 2010, only about 38% of the managerial positions were held by women whereas the number topped up in 2020 to 50%. The company focuses on eliminating inequality by removing stereotypes in its advertising.
	137	+
	138	+The company has placed second in 2020 on the statistics of best employer for women.
	139	+
	140	+[[image:best employer for women .png||alt="best employer for women unilever"]]
	141	+
	142	+Unilever has been honoured as the top environmentally friendly company back in 2017. It has committed to reduce food waste from the factory to shelf by half by 2025.
	143	+
	144	+The company is committed to build customer-centric business strategy. The company possesses the top brands and thus achieved a unique position in the customer’s mind.
	145	+
	146	+== Strategic choices and actions ==
	147	+
	148	+The strategic choices of the company comprise the overall business strategy. Below are the listed actions that the company takes as its strategy.
	149	+
	150	+1. Develop portfolio into high growth spaces – hygiene, skin care, prestige beauty, functional nutrition, plant-based foods.
	151	+1. Win with the brands as a force for good and powered by purpose and innovation – improve health of the planet, improve people’s health confidence and wellbeing, contribute to a fairer, more socially inclusive world, win with differentiated science and technology.
	152	+1. Accelerate in USA, India, China and key growth markets. The company believes in the power of the consumers therefore it focuses on the population. China and India constitute about 36% of total world population. Therefore, Unilever leverage the emerging market strength by further scaling in USA, India and China.
	153	+1. Lead in the channels of the future – accelerate pure-play and omnichannel eCommerce, develop eB2B business platforms, and drive category leadership through shopper insight.
	154	+1. Build a purpose-lead, future-fit organisation and growth culture – unlock capacity through agility and digital transformation, be a beacon for diversity, inclusion and value-based leadership, build capability through lifelong learning.
	155	+
	156	+The company believes in 5 growth fundamentals – purposeful brand, improved penetration, impactful innovation, design for channel, and fuel for growth.
	157	+
	158	+== Business model ==
	159	+
	160	+The business model of the company can be discussed in three parts. First part involves the human relationships of the company. Unilever depend on the 148,000 talented people all over the world. It has about 53,000 supplier partners around the world in 150 countries. Other committed partners of the company include customers, governments, NGOs and other organisations. Second part include the resources that go into the production of the company. Input raw materials are thousands of tonnes of agricultural raw materials, packaging materials and chemicals from around the world. Financial resources come from all the financial stakeholders of the company who invest for long-term. Unilever also has intangible assets like 400+ brands, R&D facilities and intellectual properties like patents and trademarks. The company occupies around 280 factories, 270 offices, and 450 logistics warehouses globally.{{footnote}}https://assets.unilever.com/files/92ui5egz/production/5e5eba8c5179bfcad19c3775a7f58db428bcaf91.pdf{{/footnote}}
	161	+
	162	+With the abovementioned resources and capabilities, the company embark into its production and marketing, sales and other processes. The stages of the business model are illustrated below –
	163	+
	164	+[[image:business model of unilever.png||alt="business model of unilever" height="507" width="509"]]
	165	+
	166	+**Step 1:** The business of Unilever starts with customer insights. It listens to the customers through 37 People Data Centres around the world, through social media and traditional consumer research. The company believes that changing customer sentiment matters for them.
	167	+
	168	+**Step 2:** The marketing and research team then uses the insights and input their best ideas and thinking from specialists to develop the products and brands of Unilever. The company spends a huge some in its research and innovation. For example, it has spent €847 million on R&D in 2021.
	169	+
	170	+**Step 3:** The business sources raw materials for production and packaging. It also sources services such as media to run the business. Every year the company source raw materials and packaging materials worth €21 billion and €14 billion in services.
	171	+
	172	+**Step 4:** The company turns the raw materials into final products in its own factory or in third party manufacturer’s factory.
	173	+
	174	+**Step 5:** The logistics support network worldwide delivers the manufactured products to thousands of retailers.
	175	+
	176	+**Step 6:** Marketing of the company uses advertisers globally to promote purposeful and inclusive brands.
	177	+
	178	+**Step 7:** At this stage the company makes the products available to the consumers all over the 190 countries in the world. It uses the logistics channels, wholesalers, retailers and any other means to reach out to the customers.
	179	+
	180	+**Step 8:** At the final stage, the consumers use the products and relay insights which the company collect and restarts the process of production from the beginning.
	181	+
	182	+With those steps explained above, the company creates value for its shareholders, employees, consumers, customers, suppliers, business partners, and planet & society.
	183	+
	184	+= Risk analysis of Unilever =
	185	+
	186	+The risk of a business determines largely the future prospects of it. According to the analysis of the company, the principal risk of the company is climate change. The risks that could affect the business in short-term (two years), mid-term (three to ten years), and long-term (beyond ten years). Three risks are considered to have increased during this fiscal year –
	187	+
	188	+1. Business transformation is taking place in the company since it is trying to deliver a superior customer experience. The increased scale has caused by events like disposal of ekaterra, new organizational model, and the transformation of core business process.
	189	+1. Economic and political instability have increased during the past years owing to the post-covid inflationary pressure, supply chain disruption and ongoing Covid-19 cases across different regions of the world.
	190	+1. Systems and information risk has increased sing the cyber-attack industry is becoming increasingly professionalized.
	191	+
	192	+The risk factors of the company are listed below along with their nature and the company’s attempt to mitigate them –
	193	+
	194	+|**Risk**|**Nature of the risk**
	195	+|Brand preference|Success of Unilever largely depends on the brand preference of the customers. But the fact is that consumer tastes, behavior and preferences are changing rapidly now than ever before. Consumers are preferring the brands that meet their needs and also has a social and environmental need.
	196	+|Portfolio management|The investment choices that the company makes largely determines its current and future success. The profitability of the company depends on the portfolio of its divisions, channels, and geographies.
	197	+|Climate change|Operation of the company is significantly exposed to climate change threats that currently exist in the world. The governmental actions to reduce changes can affect the demand for the products of Unilever. Regulations over energy consumption (carbon emission), energy transformation, and increased price of energy may disrupt the operation of Unilever and increase costs.
	198	+|Plastic packaging|The products of Unilever are packaged using plastic mostly. Several factors like recyclability of the plastics used in packaging, amount of recycled plastic, and amount of virgin plastic used are critical for the operation of the company. The environmental awareness of the customers, and governments can result into disrupted operation of Unilever.
	199	+|Customer|The relationship with customers determines the success of the business and continued growth. The management of customer relationships also determines the ability of the company to obtain pricing and competitive trade terms. However, Covid-19 has shown that more customers are driven to online shopping. Therefore, Unilever needs to develop ecommerce capabilities in order to remain competitive.
	200	+|Talent|A skilled workforce and agile ways of working are essential for the continued operation of the company. However, there is a risk that the employees of the company are not equipped with proper sets of skills. Also, loss of management or other key personnel or the inability to identify, attract and retain qualified personnel could make it difficult to manage the business and could adversely affect operations and financial results.
	201	+|Supply chain|Purchasing materials and efficient manufacturing and the timely distribution of products are some key to success for the company. Some physical disruption, industrial accidents, trade restrictions, or disruption of key suppliers are some risk factor that the company feel the risk of.
	202	+|Systems and information|Unilever’s operation is increasingly becoming dependent upon IT systems and management of information. But the company considers that cyber-attack threat of unauthorized access and misuse of sensitive information is increasing therefore this risk factor of the company is increasing.
	203	+|Economic and political instability|(((
	204	+Unilever operates around the world and is exposed to economic and political instability that may reduce consumer demand for our products, disrupt sales operations and/or impact the profitability of our operations.
	205	+
	206	+Government actions such as foreign exchange or price controls can impact on the growth and profitability of our local operations. Unilever has more than half of its turnover in emerging markets which can offer greater growth opportunities but also expose Unilever to related economic and political volatility.
	207	+)))
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125	125	{{putFootnotes/}}