Case Study Description of Unilever's Mission for Vitality
Dove and Axe were two highly successful brands owned by Unilever, a portfolio company. Dove was a female-oriented beauty product brand that exhorted "real beauty" and not the unachievable standards that the media portrayed. In contrast, Axe was a brand that purportedly "gives men the edge in the mating game." Their risquA? commercials always portrayed the supermodel-type beauty ideal that Dove was trying to change. Unilever had always been a company of brands where the consumer knew the brands but not the company, but recently there had been the idea to unify the company with an umbrella mission for all of its brands. This would turn Unilever into a company with brands, potentially increasing consumer awareness and encourage cross-purchases between the different brands. However, this raised questions about the conflicting messages between the brands' marketing campaigns, most notably between Unilever's two powerhouse brands, Dove and Axe. The case begins with COO Alan Jope anticipating an upcoming press meeting in New York City to discuss Unilever's current (i.e., 2005) performance and announce Unilever's decision to create an umbrella mission statement for the company. This case focuses on the central question of whether or not consistency between brand messages is necessary or inherently problematic.
Authors :: David Austen-Smith, Adam Galinsky, Katherine H. Chung, Christy LaVanway
Swot Analysis of "Unilever's Mission for Vitality" written by David Austen-Smith, Adam Galinsky, Katherine H. Chung, Christy LaVanway includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Dove Brands facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Unilever's Mission for Vitality case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Organizational culture, Strategy and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Unilever's Mission for Vitality casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Unilever's Mission for Vitality
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Unilever's Mission for Vitality case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dove Brands, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dove Brands operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Unilever's Mission for Vitality can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Unilever's Mission for Vitality case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dove Brands
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Organizational Development field.
4. Making a Organizational Development topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Dove Brands
Strengths Unilever's Mission for Vitality | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dove Brands in Unilever's Mission for Vitality Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Dove Brands is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Unilever's Mission for Vitality Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Dove Brands has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Dove Brands in the sector have low bargaining power. Unilever's Mission for Vitality has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Dove Brands to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Dove Brands is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by David Austen-Smith, Adam Galinsky, Katherine H. Chung, Christy LaVanway can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Dove Brands in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Dove Brands has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Unilever's Mission for Vitality Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Dove Brands is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Unilever's Mission for Vitality case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Dove Brands is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Dove Brands in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Dove Brands has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Dove Brands has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Dove Brands has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Unilever's Mission for Vitality HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Dove Brands digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Dove Brands has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Organizational Resilience of Dove Brands
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Dove Brands does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses Unilever's Mission for Vitality | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Unilever's Mission for Vitality are -
Need for greater diversity
– Dove Brands has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Lack of clear differentiation of Dove Brands products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Dove Brands needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Dove Brands needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Unilever's Mission for Vitality has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Dove Brands 's lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Dove Brands has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, David Austen-Smith, Adam Galinsky, Katherine H. Chung, Christy LaVanway suggests that, Dove Brands is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Unilever's Mission for Vitality HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Dove Brands has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Dove Brands supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Unilever's Mission for Vitality, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Dove Brands vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Dove Brands is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Unilever's Mission for Vitality can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Dove Brands has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Dove Brands even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Dove Brands has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Opportunities Unilever's Mission for Vitality | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Unilever's Mission for Vitality are -
Buying journey improvements
– Dove Brands can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Unilever's Mission for Vitality suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Dove Brands is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Unilever's Mission for Vitality case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Dove Brands to increase its market reach. Dove Brands will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Dove Brands to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Manufacturing automation
– Dove Brands can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Organizational Development segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Dove Brands in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Organizational Development segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Organizational Development industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Dove Brands can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Dove Brands can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Dove Brands operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Dove Brands has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Dove Brands can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Organizational Development segment.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Dove Brands can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, Unilever's Mission for Vitality, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Dove Brands in the consumer business. Now Dove Brands can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Dove Brands to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Threats Unilever's Mission for Vitality External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Unilever's Mission for Vitality are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Organizational Development field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Dove Brands can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Unilever's Mission for Vitality, Dove Brands may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Organizational Development .
Regulatory challenges
– Dove Brands needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Organizational Development industry regulations.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Dove Brands high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Dove Brands demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Dove Brands is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Dove Brands will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Environmental challenges
– Dove Brands needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Dove Brands can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Dove Brands can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Dove Brands can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Unilever's Mission for Vitality .
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Dove Brands needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Unilever's Mission for Vitality Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Unilever's Mission for Vitality needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Unilever's Mission for Vitality is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Unilever's Mission for Vitality is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Unilever's Mission for Vitality is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Dove Brands needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.