Unilever Strategy for Organising and Structuring Its Global Operations.

Unilever is a complex world-wide organization that has a portfolio of 400 brands, spanning 14 categories in home and personal administer and food products. The company has 163,000 employees in the clxx countries within which it operates (Unilever, 2010). Organizations such as Unilever baptismal font the challenge of configuring a global bodily structure that works well in diverse locations but as well as brings units together in a coordinated fashion (Shenkar &038 Luo, 2007, p. 312). inclined its wide range of products and the vicissitude of countries in which it operates, Unilever has to employ a global organisational strategy that addresses its global complexity and the diversity of its product portfolio. In its portfolio, there atomic number 18 approximately product lines that can be extended to new markets with little or no modification, while there argon others that hold to be modified to causal agent the topical anesthetic preferences. For example, chemical pro ducts are exceedingly standardized and require little variance for local markets (Child, 2005, p. 45). Standardization of such products creates economies of musical scale in intersection and requires a extravagantly level of global coordination and integrating (Child, 2005) and modify R&038D. On the other hand, some of Unilevers products, such as encase foods, require modification to suit local tastes and cultures. There are no production economies of scale for such categories and product ripening has to be facilitated locally.These factors present two scenarios for the company striving for game global integration in the case where products can be introduced to new markets without modification and striving for mettlesome local reactivity where there is need for modification to accept local preferences. Unilever has to then adopt a global organizational structure that addresses the two scenarios. The organization employs a transnational strategy, which is best suited f or Unilevers global operations, as it is faced with high pressure for both local responsiveness and global integration (Child, 2005, p. 43 Shenkar &038 Luo, 2007, p. 312). Unilever also uses the transnational strategy to organize its functions. Its sales, scattering and promotional tasks are locally responsive and are decentralized to suit person markets, whereas the R&038D function is globally integrated to leverage learning in the different markets. The transnational strategy enables Unilever to leverage the advantages of low cost in union with the advantages of differentiation. Unilever adopted the transnational strategy in the main in esponse to competition from Procter and Gamble, which was already pursue a transnational strategy by 1990 (Child, 2005, p. 247). However Unilever is still lagging cigaret P&038G, in terms of revenues, trade and innovation, because it has faced difficulty in reorganizing its activities to meet the requirements of a transnational strategy. Th e transnational strategy is both demanding and expensive to implement. It also requires a flat hierarchy (Child, 2005, p. 249) and Unilever has gone done a process of reorganizing its structure through the One Unilever programme, which was launched in 2005.The programme resulted in better allocation of resources, faster decision-making and a lower cost level (Unilever, 2007) and enables the organization to leverage its scale both globally and locally. References Child, J. (2005) Organisation contemporary principles and practice. Malden, MA Blackwell Publishing, pp. 241-253 Shenkar, O. &038 Luo, Y. (2007) outside(a) business. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA judicious Publications. Unilever Website. Available from http//www. unilever. com