A proposed strategy for Unilever Philippines

• Main Author: Maquiling, Jerrylyn Y.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2001
• Subjects: Consumer goods > Philippines; Hygiene products > Philippines; Business Administration, Management, and Operations
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/2741
• Institution: De La Salle University

Generating a vision for an organization is held to be important, because from that platform the enterprise is helped to model strategic plans and provide a kind of touchstone for goal setting. Effective vision is not to be changed from time to time, rather only at such time when present and future conditions no longer warrant its applicability and viability. In strategy formulation, amodel or a framework is used to help the strategic planers in effectively drawing the architecture for the vision implementation. From such model/framework, objectives that a particular organization wants to achieve and accomplish are patterned. But there's a key rule to follow they all must me aligned towards the vision. Precisely, this is the main thrust of this paper- how the strategies were formulated- on what basis and what tools were employed and how applicable they are in the future. More importantly, it also tackles improvements and strategic actions to help make this company a dominant player in its respective industry. Like any strategic palnning process, the paper started with an industry analysis. It is well-elaborated that in the home and personal care industry where Unilever belongs. competition among current sellers is tough that coming up with new innovative products more often that competition can make for a competitive advantage provided that quality, performance and price attributes are within the bounds and limitations of the buyers. This is because the products on this industry are highly diversified so that the differentpreferences of buyers are fully satisfied. Also, the fact that demand increases as population grows. Followed by an evaluation of company profile wwhich is said to be potentially competitive. Joint venture and acquisition are some of its growth strategies to increase revenue and profit as well as wider customer base. synergies are opportunities to leverage on. Company financial performance continues to climb posing major threat to its primary competitors. With all these conditions, Unilever Phlippines, in its quest for market dominance should adopt the Stay-on-the Offensive strategy to sustain their competitive advantage of being the best-cost provider entity and to reinforce its repuitation as a leader in detergents, hair conditioner and ice cream categories. Stay-on-the offensive stratgegy rests on the principle that the best defense is good before. Striving to be first with new products, better performance features, quality enhancements, improved customer services, or ways to cut costs not only helps a leader avoid complacency but it also keeps rivals on the defensive scrambling to keep up. Offensive options include initiatives to expand industry demand like discivering new uses for the product, atracting new users or promoting more frequent use. Hence to dominate the market, the company should relentlessly pursue continuous improvement, innovation and efficiency in its process. The company should also be open to new management concepts that are otherwise proven to be effective and helpful to an entity, provided consistent implemetation is executed. This idea forms part of this paper's recommendation. That to improve efficiency, measures should be instituted to check how far the organization is from its vision. This is the main concept of the Balanced Scorecard which the student-researcher wants to recommend to the management. Likewise, another new concept, the Activity-Based Costing/management is introduced to more accurately and effectively cost its products, which then becomes the basis for pricing scheme. With globalization popularity becoming more intense, Unilever should be as cost-effective as possible to complete with both locally made and imported consumer products. If production coata will not be improved, then the company, being a multi-national firm, faces a threat of production transfer to other Asian countries. Nevertheless, it must be pointed out that behind a successful company is its most imporatnt resource--people. Without brilliant and competetnt human resource to run the business, its objectives, especially the vision, will not be a reality. Finally, this paper gives more recent insights to the management as to how to remain competitive in this already tough market by instituting tools and measures aimed at achieving the company vision of every Filipino uses a Unilever brand everyday.