Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers
"Unilever is a solid leader in the Brazilian detergent powder market with an 81% market share. Laercio Cardoso must decide (1) whether Unilever should divert money from its premium brands to target the lower-margin segment of low-income consumers, (2) whether Unilever can reposition or extend one of its existing brands to avoid launching a new brand, and (3) what price, product, promotion, and distribution strategy would allow Unilever to deliver value to low-income consumers without cannibalizing its own premium brands too heavily. Instructors can access video interviews with the managers mentioned in the case, television commercials, and PowerPoint presentations to be used in the classroom or as handouts on the dedicated case website http://cases.insead.edu/unilever/ (copy and paste the url into a browser) using the login and password mentioned in the teaching note.
Authors :: Pedro Pacheco Guimaraes, Pierre Chandon
Swot Analysis of "Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers" written by Pedro Pacheco Guimaraes, Pierre Chandon includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Unilever Mentioned facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Corporate communications, Customers, Economy, Financial analysis, Manufacturing, Pricing and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing commodity prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Unilever Mentioned, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Unilever Mentioned 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 in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Unilever Mentioned
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Sales & Marketing field.
4. Making a Sales & Marketing topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Unilever Mentioned
Strengths Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Unilever Mentioned in Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Unilever Mentioned 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Unilever Mentioned is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Unilever Mentioned is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Unilever Mentioned in the sector have low bargaining power. Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Unilever Mentioned to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Unilever Mentioned
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Unilever Mentioned does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Unilever Mentioned is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Unilever Mentioned in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Unilever Mentioned digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Unilever Mentioned 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Unilever Mentioned 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 in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Unilever Mentioned is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Unilever Mentioned to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Unilever Mentioned to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Unilever Mentioned 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers, is just above the industry average. Unilever Mentioned needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Unilever Mentioned has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Unilever Mentioned is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Pedro Pacheco Guimaraes, Pierre Chandon suggests that, Unilever Mentioned 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Unilever Mentioned has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers, it seems that the employees of Unilever Mentioned don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Need for greater diversity
– Unilever Mentioned 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Unilever Mentioned is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Unilever Mentioned needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Unilever Mentioned to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers 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 Unilever Mentioned 's lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Unilever Mentioned, firm in the HBR case study Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers | 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 in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Unilever Mentioned in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Sales & Marketing segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Unilever Mentioned to increase its market reach. Unilever Mentioned 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.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Unilever Mentioned can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Sales & Marketing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Unilever Mentioned can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Unilever Mentioned can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Unilever Mentioned can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Unilever Mentioned can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
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 Unilever Mentioned in the consumer business. Now Unilever Mentioned can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Unilever Mentioned 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Unilever Mentioned 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 in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Unilever Mentioned has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Unilever Mentioned to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Unilever Mentioned to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Unilever Mentioned to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Unilever Mentioned 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 Sales & Marketing segment.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Sales & Marketing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Unilever Mentioned can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers are -
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. Unilever Mentioned needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Unilever Mentioned in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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
– Unilever Mentioned 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.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Unilever Mentioned business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Unilever Mentioned in the Sales & Marketing industry. The Sales & Marketing industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Unilever Mentioned has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Unilever Mentioned needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Sales & Marketing sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Environmental challenges
– Unilever Mentioned 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. Unilever Mentioned can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Unilever Mentioned 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Sales & Marketing field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Unilever Mentioned can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Unilever Mentioned 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 in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers .
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Unilever Mentioned.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Unilever in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers 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 in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers 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 in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers 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 in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers 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 in Brazil 1997-2007: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers 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 Unilever Mentioned needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
