Assignment Sample on Leading Through Digital Disruption
Introduction
The business scenario is changing tremendously, and with growing digital transformation, technologies have improved the quality of people’s lives. Still, they are also helping businesses adopt emerging trends to meet various customer demands and requirements. Safwanah et al. (2022), state that by implementing a digital environment backed with the latest machines and techniques, companies are building a solid unity to enjoy the benefits of the digital age. At the same time, shifting traditional business infrastructure into digital infrastructure is recommended as it is crucial to maintain stability and profit in the highly competitive business world. The future trend report will emphasise different digital transformation challenges that Unilever is facing today. Additionally, the information will also take into account the new trend digital agility model that can help build collaboration in gaining competitive advantages.
Task 1: Opportunities and challenges analysis
Background and review of Unilever Plc.
Since the beginning of the digital transformation era, the United Kingdom has grown drastically in business, education, architecture and hospitality. To discuss its growth more conveniently, Unilever Plc. is one of the best examples of growth and development recently. Unilever Plc. is a British-established multinational consumer goods organisation that delivers products like food, breakfast, coffee, personal care, pharmaceuticals, beauty and hygiene, energy supplements and cleansing agents (Putri, 2022). The company was established in 1929 with the aim of manufacturing cleaning agents; however, when the company started growing after 1930, the founders planned to develop new ventures in Africa and Latin America. Hence the company acquired significant experience in both nations to expand its business.
Figure 1: Unilever Plc. Logo
(Source: Unilever, 2023)
The consumer goods company has grown exponentially in the past few decades and continues to progress each year by meeting consumer demands. However, Unilever also faces competition from its rival companies that cover the production of goods in the entire European nation (Marikyan et al., 2022). Considering the growing competition, Unilever has merged its traditional business concept with a digitally agile business model that has increased its turnover by at least 30% by the end of 2020. As calculated in 2022, the net income of the company was €8.269 billion, which is 5.5% more than what was recorded in 2017.
Current digital transformation challenges in Unilever Plc.
Customer expectations and insights: The annual report of Unilever in 2021 states that digital technologies have improved customer relationships in the past few years. Due to these reasons, Unilever reported an overall increase of 3 per cent in its revenue (Almunawar et al., 2022). Nevertheless, the growing competition in today’s exceptionally digital world has also provoked millions of Unilever customers to switch to online consumer brands that deliver goods quickly and at low prices. The company believes that there is less potential and reliance on big offline retailers as e-commerce is growing globally. Thus, to gain customer insights and satisfy customers with their expectations, Unilever needs to integrate digital marketing strategies for efficiency and growth.
Data visualisation: Data visualisation support businesses by collecting and sharing large amounts of information about customer choices and expectations. However, Siwahla-Madiba and Costa (2022) state that data visualisation is often challenging for big retailers like Unilever, where thousands and millions of customers are involved. Unilever is currently facing data visualisation issues because the techniques cannot deliver systemic data, which has resulted in incorrect conclusions. Also creating data for customers comes with inherent risk where numerical data can be misinterpreted, causing customer dissatisfaction. A recent investigation on Unilever also revealed that due to improper data visualisation techniques, the company lost details of over 30% of its customers in 2019, which recovered in 2022 (Rahko, 2022). Therefore, it can be stated that digital transformation provides easy shopping options but comes with cyber threats and challenges.
Unilever operations: Even when Unilever has an expanded team of accountants to manage cash flow operations, the company faces a tough time dealing with the challenge. The emerging competition is the reason behind the failure of Unilever’s operations because companies like Nestle, Johnson & Johnson and Glaxo Smith Kline has similar functions to Unilever, which has attracted more customer due to online selling (Joshi et. al. 2022). Unilever does not plan to establish an online market in the coming years, which poses a more significant challenge for its growth and development.
Opportunities to mitigate digital transformation challenges
Digital transformation is essential for every business in today’s competitive world. As discussed above, Unilever encounters significant digital transformation challenges that have restricted the company’s growth and revenue generation. However, every challenge comes with opportunities to explore and gain competitive advantages. The present section provides insight into options to tackle technological challenges.
- The proliferation of digital and social channels can be implemented by Unilever to improve customer relationships. At the same time, by investing in AI techniques and machine learning, Unilever can enhance the consumer experience by providing immersive services through digital transformation (Liu et al., 2023)
- Data visualisation and cyber security threat is also a problem Unilever is facing today; hence to improve data visualisation and secure customer data for future use, the company can implement VPN servers for every connection that assists in securing data and also provides regular updates on security enhancement.
- By defining key performance metrics and replacing existing processes with new advanced techniques, Unilever can improve its operations and grow consistently.
Task 2: New trend for digital agility
Digital Agility Model
As the business world is continuously evolving, there is a greater need for acceptance of the digital agility model for enhancing business operations. To stay competitive and active, Unilever must adopt a digital agility model for faster business execution and customer satisfaction.
Figure 2: Digital Agility Model
(Source: Build an Agile Digital Strategy Based on These 5 Principles, 2021)
Hyperawareness: Unilever is a recognised brand in the UK and other markets such as America, Africa, Asian countries and European nations. Therefore, the company understands the importance of digital agility in maintaining the competition (Jami and Irandoust, 2022). At the same time, Unilever is hyperaware of its strengths and vulnerabilities, which, if not addressed, can be used by its competitors like GSK, Nestle, Mars and J&J to challenge the company’s operations. Hence the company strictly needs to develop hyperawareness to understand customers’ needs and fulfil them timely.
Informed decision making: Hyperawareness in the digital agility model is followed by informed decisions where Unilever can make use of data collected through hyperawareness to make informed business decisions. Be it a large-scale or a small-scale company, every sector faces issues with packaging, customer feedback and distribution process; hence with an informed decision-making process, the company will be able to improve its operations at management levels which will benefit both the company and its customers (Putri, 2022).
Fast execution: Low organisational ability and failure to innovate products and services on time are significant challenges for Unilever in executing quick decisions. Also, the growing complexities in business operations have restricted management officials from meeting customers’ demands. Hence, by implementing a digital agility model, Unilever can deliver faster services with higher efficiency to its customers (Abdulrahman and Yuvaraj, 2023).
Implementation of new technological trends
New techniques and innovations are more accessible, and the growing awareness of technologies has enabled businesses to discover new opportunities for growth.
Augmented Reality (AR): The integration of AR will prove beneficial for Unilever as it will allow the company to replace its virtual data with a natural, realistic environment by converting it into visual data. With the help of AR, the company can predict future growth options and attempt to mitigate existing challenges in the current working environment. Forbes 2021 report suggests that 80% of high-performance companies have adopted AR in the past to improve marketing and sales (Placencio-Hidalgo et al. 2022). Therefore, Unilever also needs to innovate its operations by investing in digital transformation trends, which will not only save cost on production but will also increase revenue upon AR adoption.
Blockchain: When it comes to blockchain technology, its benefits are unmatched. Moreover, it provides innovative ideas and concepts to integrate the existing process which in turn will optimise business operations and management. As mentioned above, Unilever is facing issues with the security and privacy of customer data. Hence blockchain can be used to improve safety where it becomes impossible for anyone to hack. Also, blockchain provides two-way authentication to prevent fraud and unauthorised cyber activity, which will be an additive advantage for the company.
Analysis and justification of selected technologies
From the above analysis, it is noticed that Unilever is facing significant issues related to production and cyber security. Hence, implementing technologies like Augmented Reality (AR) and Blockchain is justified for Unilever. Augmented Reality is a built-in process which accelerates productivity by improving the production process (Chandukala et al., 2022). Additionally, the system is designed in a manner which guarantees greater compliance and reduces errors which ensure high product quality. Therefore, adopting AR will be beneficial for Unilever’s growth and success in future. At the same time, building trust among customers and stakeholders is necessary to engage in higher business transactions and operations. By adopting blockchain technology, Unilever can establish trust among entities which will promote a high level of security and privacy. Also, the end-to-end encryption will allow traditional systems to automate required permissions to access which will prevent unauthorised transactions and activity.
Task 3: The role of digital collaboration tools
Critical evaluation of collaborative techniques
Fostering digital collaboration techniques in business has become essential to replace the traditional working environment. Today, with an increase in digitalisation, every business leader thinks of building a digital-ready culture which not only provides autonomy and control over the entire business system but positively impacts its operations. As discussed by Duguay (2022), digital collaboration tools cultivate the habit of self-organisation and decision making which governs the structure and designs of a company. Hence, to continue the innovation process and measure the change and stability, adopting digital collaboration tools by Unilever is necessary. On the other hand, Bezbakh and Frolova (2022) contradict the benefit of a digitally ready culture because traditional business practices had the scope of resolving errors. Nevertheless, computerised systems provide less opportunity for resolutions and corrections. Hence firms setting digital tools need to stay cautious.
As stated by Leone et al. (2022), embedding digital culture means embracing transparency where a company, regardless of its role and impact, can enhance its revenue, sales and productivity by adopting the latest technologies. Moreover, social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Chatbot have offered communication sources to every customer and business executive to facilitate transparency. Pietronudo and Leone (2022) also state that digital collaborative tools are not only linked to professionalism, but people have also adopted digitalisation in their personal lives for shared learning which has further encouraged collaboration and group cohesion. Therefore, Unilever can increase its productivity and transparency through digitalisation.
Digitalisation in building communication and collaboration between teams
The rise in digital technologies has not only diversified the talent pool in every company but has also enabled better communication and collaboration between teams of different departments. Companies continuously adopt digitalisation to foster communication and cooperation (Marikyan et al., 2022). According to a survey conducted by Deloitte, 77% of global companies favoured digitalisation for communication as it allowed more significant team interaction through Slack, Skype and Zoom, which made it easy for teams to share screens and chat simultaneously. Also, digitally-abled techniques like AI, AR and Internet-of-Things have encouraged groups to maintain meaningful interaction which can result in a smooth workflow. Therefore, digitalisation is necessary for collaboration and communication.
The second significant advantage of digital transformation that can help Unilever build successful team interaction is quick access to information. While storing all essential documents and data on a single device becomes difficult, Google Drive, One Drive, and Dropbox equipped blockchain to provide easy access to information between teams (Habib et al. 2022). This feature will save time in sharing information and will also allow smooth communication and workflow. In the end, digitalisation has also improved the business execution process, which provides flexibility and the ability to tackle problems. Therefore, digital tools like AI, IoT, AR and blockchains are consistently enhancing communication and collaboration between teams.
Task 4: Digital leadership
Digital leadership skills needed by Unilever to support digital transformation
Adopting and supporting digital transformation is not easy because digitalisation comes with complex issues. Therefore, practical leadership skills are needed by Unilever leaders to support the process.
Strategic thinking: Unilever is consistently progressing by meeting customer demands on time. Nevertheless, technology is growing, and so is the competition. Hence, higher authorities at Unilever need to define organisational goals and objectives strategically, which align with the aim of stakeholders and the digital future of the company. For example, if Unilever aims to deliver excellent customer service, the leader should strategically plan the customer’s journey with the help of different technologies and processes. Siwahla-Madiba and Costa (2022) state that it is easy for leaders to think strategically, but it is difficult to convey the same approach to their employees. The best way to incorporate strategic thinking is by defining the current organisational picture and embarking on future journeys and outcomes. When employees understand the outline, boundaries and positive impact of the objectives, it becomes easy for them to adopt the strategy.
Clarity in communication: Often, business projects fail due to miscommunication and non-strategic thinking. Leaders need to communicate clearly with employees, managers and stakeholders to avoid confusion and intrusion in the process. For example, when a leader in Unilever has an important announcement on various business operations, they need to develop a plan of action for communication and coordination where every stakeholder is allowed to discuss their opinions and thoughts (Rahko, 2022). By doing so, leaders can ensure the message is clear, and the project can be successfully delivered. Failure to communicate clearly can interrupt the project and cause financial losses to the company.
Flexibility in managing innovation: Adopting emerging technologies has been a burden for every worker because they need to learn new techniques for adaptation and operations. In such conditions, it is the responsibility of leaders to analyse market trends and support people in accepting the change towards digitalisation (Joshi et al., 2022). Generally, people restrict the difference and feel burdened with work, which may disrupt their health and personal life. Nevertheless, digital transformation comes with major benefits that will not only support people in their professional lives but will also upgrade their professional lives.
Conclusion
The future trend report on Unilever provided deep insights into how digital transformation can impact business operations and create ample opportunities for growth and development. The report was bifurcated into four significant sections covering different concepts of digital transformation, team collaboration and digital leadership, respectively. From the information, it can be justified that digital transformation is the future of every business. To grow business exponentially, every industrial sector, offline or online, must upgrade its operations digitally. By upgrading the process digitally, companies can ensure higher customer satisfaction, greater productivity and trust among customers and employees.
References
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Bezbakh, V.V. and Frolova, E.E., (2022). Augmented reality and civil law regulation of business relations. Smart Technologies for the Digitisation of Industry: Entrepreneurial Environment, pp.29-37.
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Chandukala, S.R., REDDY, K.S. and Tan, Y.C., (2022). How augmented reality can and can’t-help your brand.
Duguay, M., (2022). The post pandemic rise of augmented reality. Appita Magazine, (3), pp.38-42.
Habib, G., Sharma, S., Ibrahim, S., Ahmad, I., Qureshi, S. and Ishfaq, M. (2022). Blockchain Technology: Benefits, Challenges, Applications, and Integration of Blockchain Technology with Cloud Computing. Future Internet, 14(11), p.341.
Jami, S. and Irandoust, K. (2022). Improving agility performance among athletes by Jami Agility Table (JAT). International Journal of Sport Studies for Health, 5(1).
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Pietronudo, M.C. and Leone, D., (2022). The Power of Augmented Reality for Smart Environments: An Explorative Analysis of the Business Process Management. In Machine Learning for Smart Environments/Cities: An IoT Approach (pp. 73-91). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
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Siwahla-Madiba, N.D. and Costa, K., (2022). Digital Transformation: Towards a model for competency-based digital transformation governance for boards of directors in South Africa.
Unilever, (2023). Official Website. [Online]. Accessed through: https://www.unilever.com/
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