BUSB3 Creative Change And Innovation Assignment Sample
The FMCG Company’s overview:
The chosen FMCG (Fast-moving Consumer Goods Company) is Unilever. The company’s purpose is to make sustainable living commonplace. The business has been established over 100 years ago and now it has become one of the biggest consumer goods companies. The multi-national company is now operating in more than 190 countries (UNILEVER, 2021). The products are used by nearly 2.5 billion people every day. The company’s turnover in the last year was £51 billion with 58% in the emerging market. There is a 25million of the global network of retailers. Unilever has over 400 household name brands where 81% of brands are in the top two in their market. The company has 149,000 employees and it is gender-balanced.
Analysis of consumer demand:
In the last five years, customer demand across the world including the UK has been changed drastically. The major aspect of such change is driven due to awareness of the importance of quality or health and inclusivity consciousness and also environmental awareness. Such aspects have been the reasons why Unilever has reflected new practices in recent years. Previously, the majority of the customers used to be interested in high-quality products at affordable prices. But until 2020, the economic stability in the UK has been the reason why people wanted to spend more to avail quality products. More importantly, consumers become conscious about how products can add value to their lives. The UK is one of the nations where the majority of the people over the years become more conscious about fitness and overall health. They have also become vocal about how they want their companies to be for example mostly youth want a company that takes actions against issues such as gender discrimination and body positivity and more.
On the other hand, the second aspect which is environmental consciousness has increased in the last five years as the government has been vocal about the potential consequences of current practices and demonstrated the role of business in such situations. To be precise, there are areas such as carbon emission and sourcing agricultural raw materials that lead to negative environmental impact or climate change. Considering such a shift in the market, Unilever has been creative in implementing proper strategies that ensure customer’s demand can be fulfilled effectively. The company has dedicated divisions for all of its brands such as beauty and personal care, foods and refreshment and home care. All of the brands under the category of Unilever has revamped their products over the years based on the above-mentioned drivers of change in customer demand.
Therefore, as a result, the company advertises its Beauty and Personal care brands as equitable, inclusive and sustainable (UNILEVER, 2021). Most importantly, the brand knows that they have the power to make a positive impact. Similar, creativity of the brand that their Food products are sustainable, nutritious and fair. The major goal of the brand in the food category is to provide affordable and nutritious products. The products are premium with essential micronutrients, reducing salt and sugar that lowers calories. The company also integrated with adding value to people lives and caring for the environment by proving more plant-based options and actions to tackle food waste (UNILEVER, 2021). Even the products provided by the Home-care brands and how they are packaged are changed and also being changed right now so that people can access high-performing and affordable products which are also kinder for the plant (UNILEVER, 2021). Even though the trend has been to spend money to acquire great products but after the world faced the economic downturn due to the Covid-19 pandemic, people wanted to avail good products at a cheaper price. Thus, Unilever has ensured that there is a vast range of prices for products and consumers can easily avail themselves of such products.
Analysis of Technological advancement and change management:
The company is the leading brand in its market across the globe has embraced technological advancements in the areas of change management. The analysis of the technological advancement and change management in respect of Unilever can be done with the help of Lewin’s Change Management Model. The model involves three stages as Unfreeze, Change and Refreeze. First and foremost, the company has been active in social media to ensure positive impact by their brand campaigns by Dove where inclusivity of beauty has been talked about. This is during the unfreeze process where the brand realised how beauty is perceived across the world (UNILEVER, 2021). It influenced the need for change in the company’s products and advertisements. In the second stage, the change has been deployed in the campaign, the models are recruited in a way that every skin colour, race, bodyweight is not further shamed.
Figure 1:Lewin’s Change Management model Source: (Cummings, et al., 2016)
Due to digital advancements, the company has circulated the advertisements and made sure that it reaches to the majority of the people. It has been successful and has been positively accepted by people across the world. On the other hand, technological advancements are used to ensure that the product adheres to the required standards and also it has improved the packaging. Technology is also used to gather data on the emergence of people quitting meat and eating plant-based products. The company is the provider of health products realised such a trend not only benefits people but also the planet. With the help of data collected through technological advancements, the brand developed an understanding that plant-based foods need to be affordable and available easily so anyone can make a change in their food habits (UNILEVER, 2021). Therefore, the company has been working on a change where it can provide a vast amount of options for vegan customers. Lastly, the company has ensured that its cleaning products are not harmful to the planet which also shows technical integrity. In the refreeze stage, the company has tied such changes with a company culture that adheres to sustainability.
On the other hand, the change in the company has influenced the environmental factor such as Covid-19 which is previous mentioned briefly. The situation involved lockdown, social-distancing for a prolonged time that has impacted the company’s sales. However, the company quickly improved its sales by making the change in pricing of some of the products and the way it is distributed. Technological advancements such as Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine learning and more have been used to ensure that the products can be quickly and safely delivered to the customers as they cannot purchase the products in store due to covid-19 (Berezina, et al., 2019). Therefore, there has been a huge change due to technological advancements. In addition to that, the company has also been utilised Big data and data analytics which are major technological advancements that have shaped operations industry-wide. Recently, the company has become more effective to understand customer needs through analysing their feedbacks across every review website, social post and more. The company has accomplished the change in its operations. In this scenario, the company has been successful to implement change but the recent changes particularly those that are driven by Covid-19 still are in the refreeze process. Proper supervision of management ensures effective implementation of the change.
Conclusions and recommendations:
The report on the change management in Unilever has shown that how trends such as awareness of customers against discrimination, focusing on healthy options and considering actions to protect the planet has shaped its products, packaging and advertisements. The company remained successful as it could take an effective stand against the world’s pressing concerns such as gender biases, climate change and carbon emission, discrimination and more. The change in the purchasing behaviour of consumers brought to the company by consumers has been well-analysed with technological advancements such as big data and data analytics. The analysis of change management has been drawn utilising the change management model by Lewin.
Based on the above analysis, the recommendations are:
- The company should focus on the employee’s actions and thoughts more to make sure the change is well-accepted by them and can be implemented effectively.
- Unilever must improve its advertising in every product as it has done with Dove.
References
Berezina, K., Ciftci, O. & Cobanoglu, C., 2019. Robots, artificial intelligence, and service automation in restaurants. In Robots, artificial intelligence, and service automation in travel, tourism and hospitality, 01(01), p. 01.
Cummings, S., Bridgman, T. & Brown, K., 2016. Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management. Human relations, 69(1), pp. 33-60.
UNILEVER, 2021. Beauty & Personal Care Brands. [Online]
Available at: https://www.unilever.com/brands/personal-care/
[Accessed 09 August 2021].
UNILEVER, 2021. Foods & Refreshment Brands. [Online]
Available at: https://www.unilever.com/brands/foods-and-refreshment/
[Accessed 09 August 2021].
UNILEVER, 2021. Home Care Brands. [Online]
Available at: https://www.unilever.com/brands/home-care/
[Accessed 09 August 2021].
UNILEVER, 2021. Unilever at a glance. [Online]
Available at: https://www.unilever.com/our-company/at-a-glance/
[Accessed 09 August 2021].
UNILEVER, 2021. Unilever says no to ‘normal’ with new positive beauty vision. [Online]
Available at: https://www.unilever.com/news/press-releases/2021/unilever-says-no-to-normal-with-new-positive-beauty-vision.html
[Accessed 09 August 2021].
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