STRATEGIC MARKETING

GROUP ASSIGNMENT
ON INFORMATION SYSTEM EMPLOYED BY
UNILEVER Inc

GROUP MEMBERS

1. Alan Maina jkc-B05-0009

2. Mary Muithya jkc-B05-00
3. Willy Kibet jkc-B05-0023
4. Quinto Nalugala jkc-B05-0014
5. Joel Kihara jkc-B05-0003

[3 rd
Nov,2010]
An information system (IS) is any combination of information technology and people's
activities using that information technology Support operations, management, and
decision-making. In a very broad sense, the term
Information system is frequently used to refer to the interaction between people,
algorithmic processes, data and technology. In this sense, the term is used to refer not
only to the information and communication technology (ICT) an organization uses, but
also to the way in which people interact with this technology in support of business
processes.

There are various types of information systems, for example: transaction processing
systems, office systems, decision support systems, knowledge management systems,
database management systems, and office information systems. Critical to most
information systems are information technologies, which are typically designed to enable
humans to perform tasks for which the human brain is not well suited, such as: handling
large amounts of information, performing complex calculations, and controlling many
simultaneous processes. Examples of information systems include the following:

• Data warehouses • Geographic information system

• Enterprise resource planning • Global information system
• Enterprise systems • Office Automation
• Expert systems

Enterprise resource planning

An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is an integrated computer-based

application used to manage internal and external resources, including tangible assets,
financial resources, materials, and human resources. Its purpose is to facilitate the flow of
information between all business functions inside the boundaries of the organization and
manage the connections to outside stakeholders. Built on a centralized database and
normally utilizing a common computing platform, ERP systems consolidate all business
operations into a uniform and enterprise-wide system environment

An ERP system can either reside on a centralized server or be distributed across modular
hardware and software units that provide "services" and communicate on a local area
network. The distributed design allows a business to assemble modules from different
vendors without the need for the placement of multiple copies of complex and expensive
computer systems in areas which will not use their full capacity. These are some of
commercial applications of ERP;

Manufacturing: Engineering, bills of material, work orders, scheduling, capacity,

workflow management, quality control, cost management, manufacturing process,
manufacturing projects, manufacturing flow. Supply chain management: Order to cash,
inventory, order entry, purchasing, product configurator, supply chain planning, supplier
scheduling, inspection of goods, claim processing, commission calculation. Human
resources: Human resources, payroll, training, time and attendance, rostering, benefits.
Customer relationship management: Sales and marketing, commissions, service,
 customer contact, call-center support. Access control: Management of user privileges for
various processes

BUSINESS
PROBLEM

PEOPLE

INFORMATION BUSINESS
ORGANIZATION SYSTEM SOLUTION

TECHNOLOGY

Unilever was created in 1930 by the amalgamation of the operations of British soapmaker
Lever Brothers and Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie, a merger as palm oil was
a major raw material for both margarines and soaps and could be imported more
efficiently in larger quantities. In the 1930s the Unilever business grew and new ventures
were launched in Latin America. In 1972 Unilever purchased A&W Restaurants'
Canadian division but sold its shares through a management in July 1996 By 1980 soap
and edible fats contributed just 40% of profits, compared with an original 90%. In 1984
the company bought the brand Brooke Bond maker of PG Tips tea.

In 1987 Unilever strengthened its position in the world skin care market by acquiring
Chesebrough-Ponds, the maker of Ragú, Pond's, Aqua-Net, Cutex Nail Polish, and
Vaseline. In 1996 Unilever purchased Helene Curtis Industries, giving the company "a
powerful new presence in the United States shampoo and deodorant market" The
purchase brought Unilever the Suave and Finesse hair-care product brands and Degree
deodorant brand.

The company is multinational with operating companies and factories on every continent
(except Antarctica) and research laboratories at Colworth and Port Sunlight in England;
Vlaardingen in the Netherlands; Trumbull, Connecticut, and Englewood Cliffs, New
Jersey in the United States; Bangalore in India and Shanghai in China.

In 2008 Unilever was honoured at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy
Awards for "Outstanding Achievement in Advanced Media Technology for Creation and
Distribution of Interactive Commercial Advertising Delivered Through Digital Set Top
Boxes" for its program Axe: Boost Your ESP

Unilever owns more than 400 brands as a result of acquisitions, however, the company
focuses on what are called the "billion-dollar brands", 13 brands, each of which achieve
annual sales in excess of €1 billion. Unilever's top 25 brands account for more than 70%
of sales. The brands fall almost entirely into two categories: Food and Beverages, and
Home and Personal Care.

Unilever's brands include:

• Aviance • Lipton
• Axe/Lynx • Lux (soap)
• Blue Band • Omo/Surf (detergent)
• Dove • Rexona/Sure
• Flora/Becel • Sunsilk
• Heartbrand
• TIGI (haircare)
• Hellmann's

Corporate governance

Unilever Executive is responsible for delivering profit and growth across the
company.The firm’s challenges are continuing expansion and transition to multi-level
compensation structure through recruiting human resources necessary to be employed in
monitoring service level, design company structure, formulate organization orders and
compensation policies reviews, Hence implementation of ERP through collaborative suit
and integration with existing systems.

Implementation

Unilever has a wide scope of applications and processes throughout their functional units,
using ERP software systems that are typically complex imposed significant changes on
staff work practices. In order to operate well unilver deals with many different pieces of
information about suppliers, customers, employees, invoices and payments and of course
their products and services.

Implementing ERP therefore has made it possible for Unilever to manage all its
information, make better decision and improve on evaluation of their business process
due to complexity of the system, the firm decided to hire outside consultants who are
professionally trained to implement these systems. As it is typically the most cost-
effective way to operate in the competitive and volatile markets.

Processes here refer to the manner in which work is organized and focused to produce a
valuable product or service that is process of manipulating raw data into information.
Business processes at Unilever include work flows of materials information and other
sets of activities. For example the process of hiring employees can be broken down into a
number of different steps such as: place advertisements, contact employment agencies,
collect resumes, review resumes, interviewing candidates and enrolling employees in
employment systems such as payroll, health and pension. Therefore in Unilever this
process is swift and highly efficient, thus the major purpose of information system to
enable highly efficient business process. To a large extent the performance of business
firm depends on how well its business process are designed and coordinated. Thus
Unilevers process is a source of her competitive strength as she embraces the system into
innovation and to execution better than its rivals.

Many business processes are usually tied to specific functional area for example sales and
marketing departments function would be responsible for identifying customers and the
human resources function would be responsible for hiring employees. In Unilever this cut
across different functional areas and coordination across the departments. For instance in
the process fulfilling a customer order, the sales department would receive a sale order,
the order will first pass to accounting department to ensure the customer can pay for the
order either by a credit verification or request for immediate payment prior to shipping
once the customer credit is established the production department has to pull the product
from inventory or produce the product.

Then the product will need to be shipped and this may require working with a logistics
firm. A bill/ invoice will then have to be generated by the accounting department and a
notice will be sent to the customer indicating that the product has been shipped. Sales will
have to be notified of the shipment and prepare to support the customer by answering
calls of fulfilling warranty claims. In this case order fulfillment turns out to be very
complicated process which requires close coordination of major functional groups in a
firm. For Uniever to achieve all these steps efficiently a great deal of information
required must flow rapidly within the organization and business partners such as delivery
firms and with customers which is only possible by use of information system.

The length of time to implement an ERP system depends on the size of the business, the
number of modules, the extent of customization, the scope of the change, and the
willingness of the customer to take ownership for the project. ERP systems are modular,
so they don't all need be implemented at once. Implementation can be divided into
various stages, or phase-ins. large, multi-site or multi-country implementation like
unilever took years as the length of the implementations is closely tied to the amount of
customization desired.

Data Migration

Data migration is one of the most important activities in determining the success of an
information system implementation. Since many decisions must be made before
migration, a significant amount of planning must occur. Unfortunately, data migration is
the last activity before the production phase of an ERP implementation, and therefore
receives minimal attention due to time constraints. The following are steps of a data
migration strategy that unilever uses in its information systems implementation:
 1. Identify the data to be migrated
2. Determine the timing of data migration
3. Generate the data templates
4. Freeze the tools for data migration
5. Decide on migration-related setups
6. Decide on data archiving

Unlike most single-purpose applications, ERP packages employed by unilever have

included full source code and shipped with vendor-supported team IDEs. An integrated
development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive
facilities to computer programmers. An IDE normally consists of:

• a source code editor

• a compiler and/or an interpreter
• build automation tools
• a debugger

Advantages

In the absence of information system, a large Unilever would find itself with many
software applications that cannot communicate or interface effectively with one another.
Tasks that need to interface with one another may involve:

• ERP systems connected the necessary software in order for accurate forecasting to
be done. This allowed inventory levels to be kept at maximum efficiency and the
company to being more profitable.
• Integration among different functional areas has ensured proper communication,
productivity and efficiency
• Order tracking, from acceptance through fulfillment
• The revenue cycle, from invoice through cash receipt
• Managing inter-dependencies of complex processes bill of materials
• Tracking the three-way match between purchase orders (what was ordered),
inventory receipts (what arrived), and costing (what the vendor invoiced)
• The accounting for all of these tasks: tracking the revenue, cost, and profit at a
granular level.

The systems at Uniever have centralized the data in one place. Benefits of this include:

• Eliminated the problem of synchronizing changes between multiple systems -

consolidation of finance, marketing and sales, human resource, and manufacturing
applications
• Permitted control of business processes that cross functional boundaries
• Provides top-down view of the enterprise, real time information is available to
management anywhere, anytime to make proper decisions.
• Reduced the risk of loss of sensitive data by consolidating multiple permissions
and security models into a single structure.
 • Shorten production lead time and delivery time
• Facilitating business learning, empowering, and building common visions

Some security features have been included within the system to protect against both
outsider crime, such as industrial espionage, and insider crime, such as embezzlement. A
data-tampering scenario, for example, might involve a disgruntled employee intentionally
modifying prices to below-the-break-even point in order to attempt to interfere with the
company's profit or other sabotage. The firms systems typically provide functionality for
implementing internal controls to prevent actions of this kind. Unilever brancces are also
moving toward better integration with other kinds of information security tools.

Problems with Unilever faces with this form of information systems are mainly due to
inadequate investment in ongoing training for the involved IT personnel - including those
implementing and testing changes - as well as a lack of corporate policy protecting the
integrity of the data in the Enterprise Resource Planning systems and the ways in which it
is used.

Disadvantages

• ERP systems can be very expensive. (This has led to a new category of "ERP
light" solutions.)
• ERPs are often seen as too rigid and too difficult to adapt to the specific workflow
and business process of some companies—this is cited as one of the main causes
of their failure.
• Many of the integrated links need high accuracy in other applications to work
effectively. A company can achieve minimum standards, then over time "dirty
data" will reduce the reliability of some applications.
• The blurring of company boundaries causes problems in accountability, lines of
responsibility, and employee morale.
• Resistance in sharing sensitive internal information between departments has
reduced the effectiveness of the software.
• Unilever being large organizations has multiple departments with separate,
independent resources, missions, chains-of-command, etc., and consolidation into
a single enterprise yields limited benefits.

References

1. Khosrow-Puor, Mehdi. (2006). Emerging Trends and Challenges in Information

Technology Management. Idea Group, Inc. p. 865.
2. Sheilds, Mureell G., E-Business, and ERP: Rapid Implementation and Project
Planning. (2001) John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
3. Monk, Ellen; Wagner, Bret (2006). Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning
4. Yusuf, Y., A. Gunasekaran, and M. Abthorpe, "Enterprise Information Systems
Project Implementation: A Case Study of ERP in Rolls-Royce," International
Journal of Production Economics, 87(3), February 2004.
5. Turban et al. (2008). Information Technology for Management, Transforming
Organizations in the Digital Economy. Massachusetts: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,.
ISBN 978-0-471-78712-9