Uniliver It and Its Competitive Inteligence

(Financial Management)Subject:- Management Information System of Unilever Pakistan

Limited

Submitted to:

Sir, Tasawar javed

Submitted by:

Arooj Abdullah Roll No. 106

MBA – 4th Semester (G-1)

Department of Management Sciences

The Islamia University of Bahawalpur

Unilever Pakistan Limited Page 2

Table of Content:

1.Executive Summary 4

2.Introduction 4

3.Success Factors of Unilever gain competitive advantage: 5

3.1 Connect with customer 5

3.2 Brand focus: 5

3.3 New Channels 5

3.4 Use of Supply Chain 5

3.5 Cost Efficient: 6

3.6 Information Sharing Culture 6

3.7 Supplier Quality: 6

4. Information systems used by Unilever Pakistan 6

4.1 Hamilton SFA 7

4.1.1 Main Purpose 7

4.1.2 Develop System 8

4.1.3 Implementation 8

4.1.4 Results 8

5. Information system used by Finance department 8

5.1 Information reporting system 9


5.1.1 IRS diagram 9

5.1.2 Data flow diagram of information reporting system 10

5.2 Transaction processing system 11

5.2.1 CPM is performed these functions 12

5.2.2 Data flow diagram of transaction processing system 13

6. Porter's five forces analysis 14

7-Recommendations 16

6. Reference 16


1.Executive Summary:

First I have Discussed the History of the Unilever Limited and gave the introduction about its operation and defining its vision operating in Pakistan in particular.

I have discussed the different success factors of Unilever by implementing these factors they get competitive advantage over their rivals.

In this report I have trying to explore the Information system used by the Unilever and how these information system adds value to the Unilever in order to gain sustainable competitive advantage over the other companies. I have described all the information system used by the Unilever.

Moreover I have conducted the porter's five forces analysis about the Unilever. By doing this analysis we enable our selves to determine the current position of Unilever in the competitive environment where you have to stay ahead of your rivals all the time.

2.Introduction:

Lever brother Pakistan private limited is a multinational organization, the parent company of Unilever is located in London. The Unilever has an European culture and its headquarters are located in London. Unilever Shares are trade at Stock Exchange in different European countries. Unilever produce Homecare products and Food Products according to the customer needs Like Dove, Dalda, Ponds, Fair & Lovely, and Vim etc. Unilever extend their subsidiaries in 100 countries over the world.

William Lever started business as a grocer in England and establish Lever Brother Company in 1827. Lever Brothers makes product line and markets it in England and making Brand name. In 1930 Lever Brother merged with Margarine Uni. Margarine Unilever was established by Simon Van Berg and Anton Jorgen’s in Scotland. Both companies Perform Two Functions

Buying Raw Material

Sell finished goods

Unilever Pakistan Private Limited started its business in 1948. Unilever established its subsidiary unit in Rahimyar Khan and start its operation by merging Sadiq Vegetable Oils and Allied Industries exist in Rahimyar Khan. Unilever Pakistan Limited was incorporated as an independent operating company in 1955. Share of Unilever Pakistan are trade on Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore Stock Exchanges.

Unilever Pakistan establishes robust and attractive strategies’ to develop brand name in the mind of customers. Unilever company uses vide range of medium to communicate the customers for


its new and existing brands. The best and fast source is internet and gets easily feedback from the customer.

Vision of Unilever Pakistan Limited :

The vision of Lever Brothers Pakistan Limited is driven by is the commitment to excel and we are here to sell aspiration not brand. Through this vision, Unilever Pakistan Limited provides products and service according to customer needs and values. Unilever set their goals and objectives by their vision and achieve these objectives through customer satisfaction.

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3.Success Factors of Unilever gain competitive advantage:

3.1 Connect with customer:

Unilever main focuses on satisfying his customers needs and after analysis of the customers particular preferences they satisfy their current and future needs. Unilever focuses on using the new technologies in order to made their products according to the specific needs of their current customers and in meanwhile attracting new customer for the future. Unilever gain big market share in the market of FMCG products.

3.2 Brand focus:

Unilever Pakistan adds value to their products by using research and development department in order to compete with other international brands product. By the help of research and development department Unilever Pakistan improves their product in order to efficiently satisfying their customers' needs and provide them better benefits.

3.3 New Channels:

Unilever Pakistan find out innovative ways and channels to provide and sell their products to their customers. This means developing new channels such as direct selling, home-vending, fashion outlets, travel, food service and out-of home. These new channels of selling their products mainly help them to gain a big market share according to their rivals and competitors.

3.4 Use of Supply Chain:

Unilever Pakistan has an efficient supply chain management to increase their sales in the downstream supply chain and also adds value to the their upstream supply chain by


carefully selecting their suppliers of raw material. Unilever Pakistan attaining high profits and extended their supply of products by using proper Management Information System.

3.5 Cost Efficient:

Unilever Pakistan increases their products quality and decreasing their product cost efficiently by the use of proper information technology. Term efficient means reduction in their production cost, transportation cost, cost of distribution and packaging and at last reduction in all human cost in order to provide their products to the customers in lower cost and having the high quality in order compete with their rivals in terms of offering lower costs.

3.6 Information Sharing Culture:

In Unilever Pakistan they used PDA's to circulate important information from retailer to company to determine the exact demand and supply of their products. By this way “Just In Time concept” is relevant to Unilever Pakistan.

3.7 Supplier Quality:

The high quality of the products of Unilever Pakistan mainly depends upon the quality of raw material they are using, if these raw material having high quality then the products quality are also high. Some of the raw material used in Unilever Pakistan are imported from America and Europe to adds value in their products and in result of that gain competitive advantage over their rivals.

4.Information systems used by Unilever Pakistan:

An Information System of an company is a combination of people, procedures and resources that results in transforming and proper distribution of information among the organization. In Today’s competitive environment all the organizations are dependent on the efficient and better information system in order to compete with their rivals. There are two types of information system present in the business environment simple manual based information system (use of paper and pencil), which is somewhat obsolete in today's environment and secondly the computerized base information system by the use of different data bases to store the information about the supplier and the customers which is considered as very important tool in attaining competitive advantage in today's competitive environment.


MAIN BUSSINES FUNCTION

HUMAN RESOURCES

IT DEPARTMENT

MARKETINGFINANCE ACCOUNTS

The main business function performed by UNILEVER Pakistan express in diagram:

4.1 Hamilton SFA :

"We have seen many types of the databases engines present in the different organizations which are effectively supportable all the mobile devices, but Anywhere solutions' was the only one device that worked effectively. Anywhere Solutions' special database synchronization tools give Programmers the independence to use any database on the market."

4.1.1 Main Purpose:

Every company has its own work style. With over 295,000 employees and branches in more than 100 countries, Unilever and its employees have the main focus on continuously evolving their business processes to grow in today's competitive economy.


In these kind of competitive environment, the success of any company depends upon the process of proper handling of their information internally as well as externally.

The basic products of Unilever are based on fast moving consumer goods (FMCG). It means rapid gaining and allowance of market information; customers and competition can highly influence future sales of the company.These market information's about the customers and the company's rivals are collected from the old method of research and from secondary data. The company can't able to collect the accurate and current position of market about their products before the implementation of Hamilton SFA system. Unilever developed Hamilton SFA system to meet the lack of information about the market.

4.1.2 Develop System:

Hamilton SFA is a complex multi-platform system for sales force automation, based on SQL Anywhere Studio from Anywhere, a subsidiary of Sybase. Sybase is an sap company which provides the services of developing the different software's needed by the organization.

Unilever's Staff used PDA mobile devices; SQL Anywhere Ultrafine is used as the development technology.SQL anywhere is used innermost database even as SQL Anywhere's MobiLink technology synchronizes mobile users and the venture.

4.1.3 Implementation:

In January, 2001 Unilever starts to use Hamilton SFA system in the parent company of Unilever present in London. After the confirmation of headquarter this system is also implement in subsidiaries of Unilever in all over the world.

4.1.4 Results:

After the implementation Unilever has eliminated human errors that was occurred due to the manual processing of documents, saved precious time that are wasted on preparation of business cases and on doing manual reporting by the sales representatives and management effectiveness is increased.

5.Information system used by Finance department:Unilever Pakistan Limited Page 9

ABACUS

SKU

Profit, cost & expense

Report

Result of sales

Forecasting

ORACLE DATABASE

RISC IBM server

Excel sheets

Front end

Back end

There are two types of information system used by finance department of Unilever.

Information reporting system Transaction processing system

5.1 Information reporting system:

Finance department of Unilever used information system to calculate the SKU (stock keeping units) and find out IRS in terms of expenses, cost and forecasting of future prices of the SKU and IRS outputs that have been shown to the higher management of the organization.

5.1.1 IRS diagram:

In the above shown diagram the main database ORACLE is used from which the information is

passed out to the RISC IBM Server at the back end with the help of Abacus. exist in the RISC IBM Server at the backend through Abacus which important part of CBIS. Abacus performs the following functions:

SKU (Stock Keeping Unit). Sales results. Reporting. Forecasting. Cost, expenses & pricing.

The output of this system is displayed in the form EXCEL SHEET which is present in the main front end used.


MFGPro

Sales

Output

Report

Calculation of Profit, Cost and Expense

Forecasting for Future Prices

Excel Sheets

5.1.2 DATA FLOW DIAGRAM OF INFORMATION REPORTING SYSYTEM:


CPM (Centralized Payment Module)

Kalido

RISC Server

MFGPro

Online Data Entry

Database Upload

Authorization

Employee Account

Reviewer Reviews Entry

Check by Payment Section

Bank

Front End

Back End

5.2 Transaction processing system:

The finance department used TRANSACTION PROCESSING SYSTEM for the purpose of recording day to day operations of the organization. Through the use of TPS employee payroll process of Unilever become totally automated and removing the hectic and time consuming manual system of recording the payrolls of each employee of the organizations. It shown below:


CentralizedWebsite

SalesReceipt

Error Procedure

In the above diagram the main database MFGPRO is used which transfers the information to the RISC IBM Server with the help of CPM.

5.2.1 CPM is performed these functions:

Online Data Entry:

The employees record their data about the number of time worked with the help of centralized website used to save the employee payroll information.

Database Upload:

This above data than transferred to the reviewing database named as MFGPro.

Reviewer Reviews Entry:

Reviewers than matches this data with the original attributes of the each employee payroll.

Authorization:

If this entry matches the authorized management than transferred to the further process of giving it to the payment section otherwise discarded. If entry matches the authorized else discarded.

Check by Payment Section:

Payment section than check the data if the payroll data is approved than the bank is liable to pay the employee.

Bank:

After all these above mentioned procedure have been done the Bank will transfer payment in the employee’s account.

5.2.2 DATA FLOW DAIGRAM OF TRANSACTION PROCESSING SYSTEM

5. Value chain of Unilever Pakistan:


6. Porter's five forces analysis:

5.1-Threat of new entrants (Low):

Starting a new business which deals in home, food and personal care requires very high amount of capital investment for the new inertness in the market moreover Unilever have the complete market experience and have built up the effective and efficient distribution channels for the purpose of attaining competitive advantage and it is very difficult for the new entrants to match with that expertise that have Unilever. Unilever company is working in almost 100 countries and providing its products to the different markets and also forecast the customer demand. Most of the product of Unilever has a strong place in customers minds that have not been replaced by the new entrants easily.


5.2-Threat of substitute (High):

As in this competitive environment the consumer awareness about the healthy eating and looking for more diet alternatives like using products with having low amount of carbohydrate, low calorie food having low fats and reduced amount of salt in between them turned their focus on the best alternative food that they have in the market and looking for best suited substitute available for them. Unilever faces the high threat of substitute for their products.

5.3-Bargain power of Supplier (Low):

Unilever has an influential business and it has a very strong repute in the market and cannot be forced by their supplier in any kind of decision implemented to the Unilever. Unilever is not dependent on one supplier as it operating in 100 different countries and lots of potential supplier from which they get their raw material. Hence the bargain power of supplier in Unilever is low.

5.4-Bargain power of buyer (High):

The increase in the level of Customer awareness about the products increase their demands for having new products in better quality and also offering these products at a reasonable price to the customers. The customers are looking for the substitute products if these demands of the customers are not fulfilled by the Unilever. This has ultimately forced Unilever to introduce new products such as food products having low fat, reduced salt, and low-calorie foods items to meet the demands of their current and prospected customers. The customer demands more better quality home care products like more advanced detergents used in washing machines and better quality soaps by adding value of different new innovative formulas in them to improve the quality of these products. Hence the bargain power of buyer in Unilever is very high.

5.5-Competition (High):

In today's competitive environment Unilever faces the greater competition in the shape of Procter and Gamble and Nestle which are the main rivals of the Unilever. As the Unilever gain competitive advantage by using cost leadership strategy they are now restructure their programmed strategy by reducing their old portfolio of 1600 brands to 600 main brands in order to improve the quality of their brands and offered them at the acceptable price to their customers in order to stay ahead of their competitors. Competitors such as P & G producing the same products as produced by the Unilever and hence bring the competition in the market which is very high.

6-Recommendations

Following are the some of the recommendations for Unilever.


Keep their Information system up to date all the time in this competitive environment. Develop the Customer relationship management in Unilever. Widens their focuses on using the E-Marketing for their products. improve their upstream and downstream supply chain by adding some sort of formal

information system in between them. Automated Inventory control system must be evolved. Selecting their supplier by using information system by reviewing their previous records.

References:

www.ssuet.edu.pk/~oahmed/ce305/Documents/.../BAC-Report.doc

http://m.sybase.com/detail?id=1018908

http://www.unilever.com/aboutus/purposeandprinciples/?WT.LHNAV=Purpose_&_principles

http://www.unilever.com/aboutus/purposeandprinciples/supplier code/?WT.LHNAV=Supplier_partner_code

http://university-essays.tripod.com/porters_5_forces_analysis.html

www.pci-mag.com/editorial/026_autumn09/PCI026_golden.pdf

http://www.amcy5.com/Reports/internship/amcy43.htm


http://www.amcy5.com/Reports/internship/amcy43.htm

http://www.pci-mag.com/editorial/026_autumn09/PCI026_golden.pdf

http://university-essays.tripod.com/porters_5_forces_analysis.html

http://www.unilever.com/aboutus/purposeandprinciples/supplier%20code/?WT.LHNAV=Supplier_partner_code

http://www.unilever.com/aboutus/purposeandprinciples/supplier%20code/?WT.LHNAV=Supplier_partner_code

http://www.unilever.com/aboutus/purposeandprinciples/?WT.LHNAV=Purpose_&_principles

http://m.sybase.com/detail?id=1018908

http://www.ssuet.edu.pk/~oahmed/ce305/Documents/.../BAC-Report.doc