BCG SWOT Analysis: Unilever

In order for a firm to create competitive advantage, it needs to create a set of activites that can deliver value to the specific product and services it offers to its customers. To start talking about my life as a “value chain”, I may need to compare it to a specific product”. This is going to take precedence both in my personal life and professional life.

Unilever will want to regenerate their product so that they will be able to be the market leaders for the product again, this is going to be essential for some products where they rely on the business being a good market leader for most of their products. The shareholders will want to know about the business as they will want to have the business sot be the market leader for the company and they will also want to have the product regenerated as quick so that sales are not hit too effectively. They will also want the product to review and test why it has become a decline in sales to make sure that they are going to stop it from happening to other

The fashion designer clothing line BCBG stands for bon chic, bon genre. It is a French term that means good style, good attitude. Max Azria founded the line in 1989 and was inspired to bring European sophistication to American fashion. His line has now expanded to shoes, handbags, sunglasses, swimwear, jackets, fragrance, accessories and menswear. The label is high quality, affordable, classic and sophisticated. It is targeted toward women of all ages, shapes and personal styles. He carries everything from chic dresses to casual pants and tops. The ever growing and prosperous BCBG line is expected to be around for many years to come.

The value chain is one of the critical elements of a company’s strategy in today’s competitive world, because company’s profit depends on how the successful and efficient it runs its operations and how the end product appeals to the customers at a price that covers all the expenses of the company.

Operation of Unilever around the world starts fragmenting, but Unilever continues to expand globally and investment made in R&D is increased.

This report aims to analyse the financial position of Unilever PLC within its daily operating activities and it also compares the company’s performance with its key competitor, the Proctor and Gamble Company (P&G). The report also includes background of both the companies and an industry overview. To better understand the performance of both the companies, the segmental analyses have been done for both region and products. Due to the global crisis, Unilever and P&G both are facing price rise and inflation pressures, also instability in the Eurozone. All these factors are strongly impacting their operation activity and long-term growth decision plan. Finally After a careful examination of the financial ratios of both the companies, we recommend Unilever as a good company to invest as compared to P&G .The reasons for the following can be seen in the report below.

The value chain is one of the critical elements of a company’s strategy in today’s competitive world, because company’s profit depends on how the successful and efficient it runs its operations and how the end product appeals to the customers at a price that covers all the expenses of the company.

Keane (2008) stated to design, manufacture, promote, offer and facilitate its product or services, all organization engages in some activities. All of these activities of an organization are shown through the use of value chain process. The manner in which organization performs its varying activities along with the firm’s value chain mirrors the organization’s background, strategy along with the way in which the organization executes its strategy. Ponte (2008) stated that the analysis of value chain of an organization is used to develop the organization’s competitive strategies along with formulation the connected and interconnectedness between all the organizational activities that formulate value. Francis, Simons, and Bourlakis (2008) stated that value chain analysis is a helpful tool as an organization looks to attain competitive advantage. Furthermore, Rieple and Singh (2010) stated that a value chain is a useful tool in conceptualizing the varying activities

Value chain analysis looks at every step a business goes through, from raw materials to the eventual end-user. The goal is to deliver maximum value for the least possible total cost. It is a systematic approach to examining the development of competitive advantage. The most basic breakdown of primary functions includes inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, sales and marketing and service. People should use the other models and frameworks within this software to further differentiate between, and add to, these domains. Product Innovation is one area that is not normally included in the de jure model but is often included in the de facto model. Value Chain Analysis describes the activities that take place in

Unilever is ranked third in the beauty industry with $18.2 billion in 2010 sales. Their personal care division grew 7.9% in 2010. The strongest category resulting in this increase was in their deodorants and skin care division, one of which was the Dove Nutrium moisturizer.

A value chain is a chain of activities that a firm operating in a specific industry performs in order to deliver a valuable product or service for the market. The concept comes from business management and was first described and popularized by Michael Porter (Porter, 2013)

Value chain is an approach to know how an item or activities create value for consumers. The most of value provides to consumers, the most of competitive advantage an organization build. In this analysis, value chain model has separated into primary and support activities. Primary activities are included in the physical creation of the item and service. On the other hand, support activities give the inputs and infrastructure that enable the primary activities to happen. This value chain model can be refer to below figure 5.

The value chain analysis (shown in appendix) was also generated by Michael Porter. This model is referred to “identifying ways to increase the efficiency of the chain” (Investopedia, n.d.). Furthermore, the overall objective is to produce maximum value with minimum total cost and establish a competitive advantage.

Unilever is the corporation that produces wide variety of products such as Axe deodorant, Vaseline, Surf detergent, and Lipton tea, among many other products used every day.

A value chain is nothing but a set of activities that a firm operates to deliver a much valuable and quality product or services in the market. The term comes from Business management and was firstly coined by Mr. Michael Porter in his best seller.