Unilever the Highs and Lows of Driving Sustainable Change - Case Study Example

Abstract The paper takes into account the detail analysis of Unilever starting from studying its purpose, goals, operations, leadership, structure, size, values, norms, culture and environment. This paper defines the effectiveness of the organization by comparing it to several theories. Unilever has based its strategic plan on achieving a sustainable environment. The culture of Unilever has derived from its own multi-national background.It has successfully changed its leadership style over the year, which is considered to be the main reason behind the firm’s success. Unilever is the world’s largest FMCG Company in the world with its competitor being P&G. The company has successful connected itself with the hearts of the people and has made itself the fundamental feature of their lives. It is the world’s leading supplier of consumer goods, providing people with the goods that are good for them as well as for others. There are 2 billion people using Unilever products daily. The company works to create a better vision for its people every day for the rest of the future. It helps people to look good, feel good and get more out of their lives by the help of the brand and services being offered to them that are good for them as well as for other. Unilever inspires people to take small effective actions every day that will definitely add up to a bigger difference being made for the benefit of the world. Within time they have developed several effective ways of doing business and doubled the size of their business with the least environment impact. The corporate vision of Unilever states that they maintain the highest standards of corporate behavior with all the people it works with, all the communities it touches through its products and the environment it imposes an impact on. The principles of Unilever include working with integrity, setting out aspiration, continuous commitment and positive impact. The structure of the company is based on executive directors, non-executive directors, Unilever executive (UEX) and senior operating officers. The executive directors at Unilever are the members of UEX. The CEO and CFO of the company are actually the executive directors from Unilever executives, UEX. In the governance of Unilever non-executive directors are considered to be independent. UEX is responsible for managing the firm’s growth, profit and loss, categories, functions and regions. The responsibility of the senior corporate officers is to make sure that the board members get all the necessary information. The strategic plan of Unilever is based on achieving sustainable living. Unilever believes in the fat that with 7 billion people in the world, the resources are under much strain. We are living in a planet where water is scarce, the temperature is constantly rising and energy is becoming more expensive. All of the discussed problems cannot be ignored. Unilever believes that it is their job to provide a solution to the people. For doing so the business has to make certain amendments and choosinga sustainable growth model for the business is the only acceptable and successful model for the company. The company’s strategy states the purpose of making sustainable living a commonplace, whereas its vision includes doubling the size of their business, while increasing its social impact and decreasing its foot print on the environment. Unilever is a successful company and the firm is committed to win the hearts of people through integrity and business values. This commitment is underpinned in the values of the company and the way it is does its business. The culture of Unilever has derived from its own multi-national background. This in a way has also influenced the strategic decision making under the influence of the systemic approach introduced by Whittington. Whittington states that an organization in the circumstances like that of Unilever would work hard to adopt the systemic approach described by him. Unilever believes in the fact that the organizational structure of any organization is governed by its social structure which is created by the management level, interest group or social class. Organizational culture at Unilever is complex and is influenced by a number of factors. The culture of Unilever is based on the Hofstede’s theory which states that the cultural dimensions implies that not everyone in the population will possess the same characteristics; therefore the color dimensions will affect the administrative and institutional dimension which will set the values for behavior[Ric03]. There are several theories that help us in understanding the relationship between employees and manager working within an organization. There are three theories that address the employee-leadership relationship at Unilever. Taylor’s theories state that for achieving maximum effectiveness and efficiency within an organization it is essential to synthesize the workflow, which ensures the alignment between the organization’s requirement and resource availability. Taylor suggested that by monitoring and measuring these objectives and defining procedures and processes to be followed by the employees, it is important to significantly increase the labor’s effectiveness and productivity. The corner stone of the theories given by Taylor is adopting the best practices for maximizing the organization’s productivity and minimizing its waste. The theories of Taylor can directly be related to the manufacturing plan of Unilever. All of the products being manufactured by Unilever in its plantsare either ingested or being used for personal care, and therefore the manufacturing must be of highest quality and standards. Unilever is facing some difficulties with its employee relationship whereas several significant changes are still taking place which aresecuring the future of Unilever in the current economic environment. Taylor’s theories suggest that Unilever needs to be with its employees at the time of challenge and change. The application of these theories suggests that the switch from the traditional leadership style to collaborative leadership style has helped Unilever in the management and instillation of change. Unilever has adopted several modern practice, however in order to be successful it must continuously engage and motivate employees, especially the ones who are new to its culture. Taking all the factors in consideration, it is clear that there exists a culture of success and self-perpetuating cycle which helps Unilever to behave in a manner that will guide them in building a vigorous business which is fit for operating in the current environment. The communicative and collaborative style of leadership must be held by Unilever along with implementing Maslow’s theory that will help engaging employees in such a way that they will provide feedback and effective criticism on the performance of the firm[JoC13]. Unilever continues to make progress in inserting environmental and social consideration into its operation. However the company still admits that its broader influence is quite limited and the scale and complexity challenges across society means that there is a need of much deeper collaboration if there is going to be some transformational change. Unilever is continuously finding way to make people understand the importance of sustainability, so that they can take it more seriously. They are finding it hard to make people convince to adopt sustainable practices. For example Unilever introduced low salt food but the consumers were so hooked on the taste that people compensated it by adding more salt to their food on the table. Another change that has taken place in Unilever over the year is that it has started recognizing the needs of people, paying more attention on supporting women and on human rights. Perhaps the most significant change that Unilever has implemented within the last few months is that it has finally started to integrate its sustainable and financial management, which before was being dealt separately. One of the reasons that the company feels comfortable in integrating its environmental and social responsibilities with finance is because it believes that sustainability drives innovation which in turns helps Unilever to become more resilient and profitable. Unilever is continuously implementing changes and is becoming more efficient in managing its resources such as raw material and energy. The company believes that the more it will lower the cost, the more it will be able to reduce the risk and invest in brands and sustainable innovation. References Ric03: , (Black, 2003), JoC13: , (Confino, 2013), Read More