UNILEVER’S NEW GLOBAL STRATEGY
Name
Institution
Course
Professor
Date
Question 1.
Paul Polman’s decision to implement the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan has achieved set goals. It has achieved more than 50 percent in a period of 10 years hence being a successful strategy. This strategy has decreased greenhouse gas emissions, increased financial gain, revenue growth, market share, and share price, defeating past performance and competitors. All the measures put in place by the strategy have led to an increase in global and domestic economies and build shareholder confidence in the company. By 2014, the financial metrics were looking positive plus the revenue, which grew tremendously through this strategy. Unilever’s Living Plan has been significant because it helped cut the cost, thus increasing the margins. According to Polman, the growth rate has increased in the year 2016 (Bartlett, 2016).
Polman’s new strategy basing on Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan has offered numerous benefits. It has led to the tremendous growth of its sustainable brands. According to statistics, it grew 46 percent faster than other businesses, and 70 percent turnover growth was delivered. Unilever’s brands have increased their positive social impact. Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan has made Unilever have approximately 26 sustainable living brands. It has got new entrants such as Sunlight. Vaseline, Sunsilk, and Wall’s. Unilever has also got the top six brands such as Lipton, Dove, Rexona, and Dirt is Good. For a period of four years, the sustainable living brands outer performed the average growth rate of Unilever. Unilever has delivered more environmental and social benefits (Hidayat et al., 2013).
Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan has set an ambitious target that has made the company meet around 80 percent of its commitment, such as making improvements on health and well-being for more than 1 million people, it has enhanced the livelihoods for millions of employees, reduced environmental impact by half. Through the strategy, the company has been able to carry out the listing exercise concerning the future of sustainable business. Since Unilever is a worldwide business with a global supply chain, it experiences supply chain risk significantly when revenue and profit are disrupted. A supply chain of Unilever is exposed to industrial accidents, physical disruption, and bankruptcy. Although the company has recognized sustainability to be crucial to consumers, growing both the profit and business at the same time has posed a risk hence growing the risk around the business.
Question 2.
Every year, progress has been reported by Unilever. Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan has been effective because it has reached more than 1.3 billion people through hygiene and health programs. It has reduced the total waste footprint by 32 percent and achieved zero waste across all factories; greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced by 65 percent, and renewable grid electricity of 100 percent has been completed. Also, sugar has been reduced on all Unilever sweetened tea-based beverages by 23 percent; the food portfolio has met 56 percent of recognized High Nutrition Standards. Implementation of Unilever Sustainable Living Plan has been effective because, for the past 10 years, 2.34 million women have been able to access initiatives that aim to promote their safety, develop their skills, or expand their opportunities (Lawrence et al., 2019).
The strategy has helped build a gender-balanced workplace whereby women perform 51 percent of management roles. In the past ten years, according to Rebecca, sustainable living brands such as Dove have performed. Although the green groups have applauded Unilever for reducing greenhouse emissions, it has faced problems in convincing the consumers to cut their environmental impact. Unilever acquired a new shampoo business but failed to persuade the customers to apply energy for hot showers. Implement the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan has led to weak systematic controls and inefficient business processes. Although Unilever implemented this strategy and set ambitious sustainability goals, it failed to effectively implement sustainable behaviors, system control, and sound processes, which make managers accountable in delivering results (Lawrence et al., 2019).
Question 3.
Unilever’s company should donate 18 initiatives that will empower the world to defeat hunger and change lives. Unilever should also form a sustainable fashion movement, give dignity to individuals living in the streets, and help families experience food shortages. Ten years ago, Unilever had a strategy of being the globe’s most sustainable business. Unilever should shield the workforce worldwide due to COVID 19 from the inability to perform and causing market disruptions. Unilever should also play a significant role in protecting people’s livelihood and lives from COVID 19 through creating awareness. Unilever should also focus on rebuilding sustainability, especially during COVID 19 era. What is recommended by the management to take is that they should aim at improving well-being and health for more than 1 billion people (Murphy & Murphy, 2018). More than a billion people should take action to improve their health, especially during this pandemic.
Question 4.
During a crisis like COVID 19, maintaining a healthy lifestyle and well-being proves to be complicated. There are numerous worries and uncertainty related to elderly parents, finances, job security, and mental health; this increases the anxiety of people. Unilever should take measures that safeguard employees; operational and financial exposure should be mitigated. The company should also closely monitor Coronavirus and offer the necessary support needed to curb its spread among the world’s people. By developing sober plans to help business continuity, thus reducing the range of business disruptions experienced. This will help to reduce the unemployment rate in the company’s numerous branches across the globe during the pandemic.
Since Unilever has a role to play concerning global health, a workforce that values health will be created. A workplace would be designed in such a manner that employees have got exemplified corporate environmental responsibility. An initiative that enforces the health of many workers in Unilever will be implemented. Well-being programs and services would be enhanced during the Coronavirus pandemic. Products and services in Unilever would be differentiated by taking a health lens. Tools should be developed by Unilever, whereby accessible solutions are provided for well-being needs and critical health. More than 360 million people in the world miss doctor appointments because they are no reliable transport. What Unilever would implement is supporting the construction of modern means of transportation to inaccessible areas (Gareth Bell, 2013). A program would also be put in place to eliminate the barrier of receiving healthcare services.
Unilever would also partner with community organizations so that a more significant impact is attained. Unilever will incubate more useful health programs and partnerships with community organizations to improve their health outcome. Unilever would also engage in public policy by taking a stand against health inequality. Unilever will influence cultural dialogue and policy debates; therefore, health equity will only be attained by public policy engagement and public communications. For well-being and healthy society to be constructed, healthy business programs’ strategic significance would be highly considered so that the core business assets positively impact the world.
References
Bartlett, C. A. (2016). Unilever’s New Global Strategy: Competing through Sustainability. Harvard Business School, 916-414.
Gareth Bell, I. (2013). Want to change the world? Think differently: An interview with Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever, part 2. Strategic Direction, 29(5), 36-39.
Hidayat, S. E., Gayasuddin, M., & Muhammad, M. A. (2013). How Important Is An Effective Leader In Creating Business Sustainability?(A Case Study: Unilever PLC). International Journal of Pedagogical Innovations, 1(02).
Lawrence, J., Rasche, A., & Kenny, K. (2019). Sustainability as opportunity: Unilever’s sustainable living plan. In Managing Sustainable Business (pp. 435-455). Springer, Dordrecht.
Murphy, P. E., & Murphy, C. E. (2018). Sustainable Living: Unilever. In Progressive Business Models (pp. 263-286). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.