Companies' Analysis

Unilever and Reckitt Benckiser

Introduction of the Two Companies:

Unilever is a FMCG company headquartered in London, England. The company offers a wide range of products which includes food items, beverages, cleaning agents, and personal care products.  It is world’s third largest company as per the revenues. Unilever has served a huge portion of the market covering many countries thus becoming a famous FMCG provider organization. The products of Unilever are available in more than 190 countries. The famous brands of Unilever are Lipton (famous tea), Lux and Rexona (soap), Sunsilk (shampoo), Surf (washing powder) and Magnum (ice cream).

Reckitt Benckiser is another world famous FMCG headquartered in Berkshire. The major product lines are home products, hygiene and health concerning products. The company operates in more than60 countries and served almost 200 countries with a wide range of network. The famous brands of Reckitt Benckiser are Dettol (famous antiseptic), Strepsils (famous medicines of throat infections), Veet (famous depilatory), and Air Wick (famous air freshener).

There can be different forms of companies e.g. sole proprietorship, partnership, limited partnership, corporation and many others. The legal structure and other rules and regulations are totally dependent on the specific form of the company. Unilever is a public limited company and dual listed in two different stock exchanges with different names as Unilever N.V and Unilever PLC but still they work as a single entity. Reckitt Benckiser is also a public limited company listed in London Stock Exchange. These public limited companies usually float their shares in the trading market and thus raise the capital to be employed in the business. These shares are offered to the general public, anyone can purchase them.  Every shareholder gets the ratio of profit according to his shares in the business and no other liability is owed to him.

Though Reckitt Benckiser is operating at relatively small scale than Unilever but still both of them can be considered as competitors to each other because their origin are same, their serving market is same. Both of them are offering products which are commonly used in house hold matters in a routine life. Therefore they are competing firms with respect to many aspects. There can be many indicators which are usually used to highlight the firm who beats other market players. One of these indicators is the financial information of any firm. The research studies show the financial information of Unilever and Reckitt Benckiser which is given below;

This means that Unilever and Reckitt Benckiser are facing a healthy but tough competition in the market because both of them are nearly close to each other in the financial facts. Their competition is also shown through their advertising strategies.

Every firm needs a vision statement on which it can run its business activities. This vision statement actually depicts the purpose of existence of any firm. A clear and vivid vision helps to devise values for the company and these values are actually the terms and conditions to work with that specific company. These vision and values ultimate motivate employees to work harder and achieve success.

Unilever team says that there vision is to provide people the households through which they can feel good, look good and get more out of life. They want their customers to take huge advantage of little things which are used in daily routine life. This shows that the Unilever team wants to get inside into people’s daily life with the help of their household product items.

Contrary to Unilever Company, team at Reckitt Benckiser is aimed to give a healthy yet innovative life with the help of their house hold products. They want to differentiate themselves in the market among competitors on the basis of their innovative but useful products. They want to give a world where health and fitness are preferred by the people.

Corporate responsibility can be defined as the ethical and moral duty of any entity or we can say organization to devise such operational strategies which are beneficial for the people and the whole society as well. Now the people are very much aware about these delicate issues. They noticed such kind of activities if any firm is fulfilling its corporate social responsibility. United Nations says that CSR means that companies are integrating their operational activities with the social concerns.

Like many other multinational firms Unilever is trying its best to fulfill the corporate social responsibility and thus achieve a good image in the minds of the customer. The Unilever team always prefers to provide a healthy and hygienic environment with the help of their different household products. By adopting better techniques of waste management they have tried their best to save the environmental pollution. An efficient use of natural resources like minerals, water and certain gases is also a part of social responsibility and the Unilever team is very much concerned about it.

Another aspect of execution of corporate social responsibility is green marketing and the team at Reckitt Benckiser is aimed at it. They have planted almost 5 million trees and thus proved themselves to be nature friendly organization which operates to lessen the effects of environmental pollution. They claimed that all of their products are eco-friendly which means that its use will not harm the surrounding environment of a house.

In general terms the stakeholder can be defined as any single person who may get affected because of any change in the policies of the organization. Even the end-users are also considered as the stakeholders for an organization in some cases. The organization has to consider all of its stakeholders before taking any decision because it may affect them directly. These stakeholders are very important consideration for any organization because they affect the policy making process and the decision making process of the top management. Some authors give so much importance to these stakeholders that they say a firm cannot survive without the support of these stakeholders.

Unilever says that we are fully committed with our stakeholders because they are the reason of our success. Government is the biggest stakeholder because they have to give us an environment in which we can operate well. Government policies are very important because the team at Unilever make their policies on the basis of them. Managing relationships with customers, suppliers, investors and the most important employees is a critical issue. Unilever always to engage all of its stakeholders with them so that they fell involved in all decision making. The team at Unilever believes that sustainability in the operations is only possible when all the stakeholders play their positive role.

The team at Reckitt and Benckiser always strive to maintain sustainability in their operations. And this sustainability is only possible if the stakeholders are with them. Once RB faced some agitation for them customer regarding product quality but then the Reckitt Benckiser team changed it as per the customer demand. According to RB management stakeholders are those who even can alter the policies of the organizations with their immense power. Therefore it is necessary for them to take care of those stakeholders either case they are i.e. Government, investors, customers, employees and the suppliers.

To operate in the market, an organization must need certain organization strategies. These strategies are actually the ways or the plan of actions which help the management to behave in a certain situation. These strategies are very much helpful for the firm so they must be designed with great care keeping all the possible contingencies in mind. If there is contingency management in any organization then it shows the strength of its flexibility towards uncertain situations. These strategies must be aligned with the objectives of the firm.

The team at Unilever named their organizational strategy as the compass path because it provides them a direction to move on for further development. The business strategy is designed towards a sustainable growth. This strategy is also aimed to involve all the possible stakeholders so that they can feel their involvement in it. The basic aims of the operational or we can say business strategy is to save the environment, double the size of the product lines and the most important is the positive social impact.

The team at Reckitt and Benckiser is also very much suspicious to design such an organizational policy which could match with their vision of innovativeness. They aimed at finding the unique solutions for the customers. It is also tried that these strategies should meet the mutual interest of the shareholders and the stakeholders. Employing right people on right places is also a part of strategy so that they work well and also with their interest.