Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World
Hindustan Unilever Ltd. can trace its current-day profitable business operations in its Doom Dooma factory in the conflict-ridden northeastern state of Assam (India) to its proactive corporate responsibility initiatives since the start of its operations. A spurt in sales in the personal care segment has led the company to consider capacity expansion. The company needs to decide whether to continue to invest in Assam despite three challenges: operational risks posed by the area's continuing insurgency, the possibility of labour disruptions and the imminent discontinuance of fiscal incentives.
Swot Analysis of "Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World" written by Tulsi Jayakumar includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Assam Hindustan facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Emerging markets, Social responsibility, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Assam Hindustan, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Assam Hindustan 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 Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Assam Hindustan
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Assam Hindustan
Strengths Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Assam Hindustan in Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Assam Hindustan has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Assam Hindustan to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Assam Hindustan in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Assam Hindustan
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Assam Hindustan does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Assam Hindustan has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Assam Hindustan 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Assam Hindustan is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World 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.
Learning organization
- Assam Hindustan is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Assam Hindustan is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Assam Hindustan digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Assam Hindustan 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Assam Hindustan 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Assam Hindustan is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Assam Hindustan has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Assam Hindustan is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World 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.
Weaknesses Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World 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 Assam Hindustan 's lucrative customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World, it seems that the employees of Assam Hindustan 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Assam Hindustan has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of Assam Hindustan products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Assam Hindustan needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
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 Assam Hindustan supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Assam Hindustan vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Tulsi Jayakumar suggests that, Assam Hindustan 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World 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 Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Assam Hindustan is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World, in the dynamic environment Assam Hindustan has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Assam Hindustan has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Need for greater diversity
– Assam Hindustan 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Leadership & Managing People strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Assam Hindustan 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.
Opportunities Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World | 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 Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Assam Hindustan 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 Assam Hindustan to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Assam Hindustan can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Assam Hindustan operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Assam Hindustan 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Assam Hindustan 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Assam Hindustan 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 Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Assam Hindustan to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Assam Hindustan 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.
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 Assam Hindustan 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Assam Hindustan 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. Assam Hindustan 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, Assam Hindustan 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Assam Hindustan can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Assam Hindustan can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Assam Hindustan can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Assam Hindustan 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, Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World 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. Assam Hindustan needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Assam Hindustan 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.
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 Assam Hindustan business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Assam Hindustan 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. Assam Hindustan can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Assam Hindustan 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 Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Assam Hindustan can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Assam Hindustan 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 Assam Hindustan is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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 Assam Hindustan in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Assam Hindustan 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 Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World .
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 Assam Hindustan.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World 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 Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World 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 Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World 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 Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World 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 Hindustan Unilever Ltd.: Creating Shared Value in a VUCA World 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 Assam Hindustan needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
