Internship Report on Unilever

Unilever 

Submitted to:

                      Sheikh Arif Sb

Submitted by:

                      Usman khalid

                              CONTENTS

                    ACKNOWLEDGMENT

                Countless thanks to Almighty Allah (The most merciful the most beneficial).The only creator of universe who enabled me to complete this report, in spite of various difficulties. All respects to the Holy Prophet (S.A.W) who enable us to recognize our greater and whose spiritual teaching guides us in every matter of the life.

                I am immeasurably, indebted to my advisor “Sir Sheikh Arif” who kindly provided me opportunity to check my abilities in a good organization like Uni Lever Brothers Ltd. It was valuable experience for me to do such an interesting work and it was really a delightful job for me to do.

             I extremely thanks for supporting persons Obaid Ur Rauf Qazi(Assistant Brand Activation Manager) Mr.Mubasshar (Execution Manager), Mr.Kashif (Brand Activation manager). And involved personalities. Without the cooperation of these persons I could not complete this task with intension.

“The profound effect of a teacher upon the students can only be described by the lives of his students.”

                                                                Dedicated

                                                TO

                                 MY RESPECTABLE

                                                AND

                                 BELOVED PARENTS

                                                             And

              They taught to always follow the path of truth,

                                      Justice, honesty and sincerity.

                                   PREFACE

COMSATS Institute of Information Technology is one the fastest growing university of Pakistan. The university has a Federal Degree awarding charter and it is functioning under the administrative control of Federal Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of Pakistan. This university is rendering invaluable services and producing outstanding graduates. Being the student of that superb university management sciences department I feel proud because of its faculty their vast knowledge and scholastic approach.

Comsats Institute of Information Technology arranges an Internship during summer vacations in final year. The purpose of this program is to give practical exposure about our study. It also helps us to understand how to survive in this dynamic and challenging business oriented world.

This report contains the details about Uni Lever Brothers. This repot is prepared in such a way that reader gets full overview of Uni Lever Brothers.

                                                                   Usman khalid

                                                               Master in marketing

                                                     Institute of information technology

1)   Executive Summary

                          This report is based on internship in Uni Lever Brothers Pakistan Limited. It is a famous and reputed multi national company in the world that is also working in Pakistan. This report based on the activities, which I have performed in this company. I have done my internship in brand activation department. Brand activation department basically works for the promotional activities of the brands like work for any event for the promotion of brand, celebrity endorsement etc. In this report I also have discussed the organizational structure of Uni Lever. The background and what I have learnt at their also discussed. At the end observed SWOT analysis of Uni Lever Brothers is given.

2)      BACK GROUND OF HOST ORGANIZATION

A)    BACKGROUND

Unilever was founded in 1930 following a business merger between Margarine Unie of the Netherlands and Lever Brothers Ltd of the UK. To avoid punitive taxation levies and the disruption to the business that would result from dividing integrated national companies into their component parts, both companies pooled their interests through a business merger as opposed to a legal merger. Two controlling companies were set up, one English (Unilever Ltd - now Unilever PLC) and the other Dutch (Unilever N.V.).  To allow both companies to operate as a single legal entity notwithstanding their independent legal structures, a series of agreements was put in place: mutual sharing of brands and technology; equalization of dividend; mutual guarantee of borrowings; identical Boards of Directors and equal treatment for shareholders in the event of dissolution.  

Helping people get more out of life

In the 1890s, William Hesketh Lever, founder of Lever Bros, wrote down his ideas for Sunlight Soap – his revolutionary new product that helped popularize cleanliness and hygiene in Victorian England. It was 'to make cleanliness commonplace; to lessen work for women; to foster health and contribute to personal attractiveness, that life may be more enjoyable and rewarding for the people who use our products'.

This was long before the phrase 'Corporate Mission' had been invented, but these ideas have stayed at the heart of our business. Even if their language - and the notion of only women doing housework – has become outdated. 

In a history that now crosses three centuries, Unilever's success has been influenced by the major events of the day – economic boom, depression, world wars, changing consumer lifestyles and advances in technology. And throughout we've created products that help people get more out of life – cutting the time spent on household chores, improving nutrition, enabling people to enjoy food and take care of their homes, their clothes and themselves.

Balancing profit with responsible corporate behaviors

In the late 19th century the businesses that would later become Unilever were among the most philanthropic of their time. They set up projects to improve the lot of their workers and created products with a positive social impact, making hygiene and personal care commonplace and improving nutrition through adding vitamins to foods that were already daily staples. 

Today, Unilever still believes that success means acting with 'the highest standards of corporate behavior towards our employees, consumers and the societies and world in which we live'. Over the years we've launched or participated in an ever-growing range of initiatives to source sustainable supplies of raw materials, protect environments, support local communities and much more.  

Through this timeline you'll see how our brand portfolio has evolved. At the beginning of the 21st century, our Path to Growth strategy focused us on global high-potential brands and our Vitality mission is taking us into a new phase of development. More than ever, our brands are helping people 'feel good, look good and get more out of life' – a sentiment close to Lord Lever hulme's heart over a hundred years ago.

Timeline

Unilever Pakistan Limited was established some fifty years ago in the then newly created Pakistan. The town of Rahim Yar Khan was the site chosen for setting up a vegetable oil factory in 1958 and that is where the first manufacturing facility was developed. Today, Unilever Pakistan is a force to reckon with. Its contribution to Pakistan's economic development cannot be overestimated. Now operating five factories at different locations around the country, the company contributes a significant proportion of the country's taxes. It employs a large number of local managers and workers. It provides a pool of well-trained and highly motivated manpower to other segments of the company and has introduced new and innovative technologies Into the country.

Our company is dedicated to great brands that help people look good, feel good and get more out of life. At the same time it's a company that tries to act responsibly towards its communities and the environment. We aim to add vitality to life. It's a big ambition, but it's always been right at the heart of our business.

Life partner

With 400 brands spanning 14 categories of home, personal care and foods products, no other company touches so many people’s lives in so many different ways.

Uni Lever brand portfolio has made them leaders in every field in which they work. It ranges from much-loved world favorites including Lipton, Knorr, Dove and Omo, to trusted local brands such as Blue Band and Suave. 

From comforting soups to warm a winter's day, to sensuous soaps that make you feel fabulous, our products help people get more out of life. 

We're constantly enhancing our brands to deliver more intense, rewarding product experiences. We invest €1 billion every year in cutting edge research and development, and have five laboratories around the world that explore new thinking and techniques to help develop our products. 

Continuous development

Consumer research plays a vital role in our brands' development. We're constantly developing new products and developing tried and tested brands to meet changing tastes, lifestyles and expectations. And our strong roots in local markets also mean we can respond to consumers at a local level. 

By helping improve people’s diets and daily lives, we can help them keep healthier for longer, look good and give their children the best start in life. 

We also believe that the very business of conducting business in a responsible way has a positive social impact. We create and share wealth, invest in local economies and develop people's skills – both inside our organization and in the communities around us. 

Today Unilever employs 223 000 people in 100 countries worldwide, and supports the jobs of many thousands of distributors, contractors and suppliers. 

Health & personal care

First launched in France in 1983, our leading male grooming brand, Axe, now gives guys the edge in the mating game in over 60 countries

Our oral care brands Mentadent, Peposodent and Signal have teamed up with the world’s largest dental federation, the FDI, which represents over 750,000 dentists around the world

Lux became the first mass-marketed soap when it launched in 1924. Today it achieves annual global sales of over €1 billion

Domestos is a best-selling brand in nine of the 35 countries in which it's sold

Hindustan Lever in India has launched a hand-wash product, Surf Excel Quick Wash, with a low foaming formulation, reducing the amount of water needed for rinsing by up to two buckets per wash

recent breakthroughs at Rexona include Rexona Crystal, a deodorant that eliminates unsightly white deposits on dark garments.    

Foods

Knorr is our biggest food brand with a strong presence in over 80 countries and a product range including soups, sauces, bouillons, noodles and complete meals

we're the world's largest ice cream manufacturer, thanks to the success of our Heartbrand which includes Magnum, Cornetto, Carted'Or and Solero, and Ben & Jerry's and Breyers in the US

Lipton's tea-based drinks include the international Lipton Iced Tea range, the Lipton range in North America and Lipton Yellow Label, the world's favourite tea brand

Becel / Flora pro.activ products have been recognised as the most significant advancement in the dietary management of cholesterol in 40 years

in the mid 1990s we led the industry with our programme to eliminate almost all trans fat from our margarine

AdEs, our soy-based fruit drink, has been growing at the impressive rate of 35% since its launch in 1997 in Latin America.    

B)   MISSION STATEMENT

The uni lever mission is to add vitality to life. They meet everyday needs for nutrition; hygiene and personal care with brands that help people look good, feel good and get more out of life.

3)  BUSINESS OPERATIONS

A) ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

Board of Directors

Ms. Musharaf Hai Chairman &Chief Executive

Mr. Peter I. Harvey CFO &Executive Director

Mr. M. Qaysar Alam Executive Director

Mr. Syed Babar Ali Non-Executive Director

Mr. Fatehali W. Vellani Non-Executive Director

Mr. Omar H. Karim Non-Executive Director

Mr. Zaffar A. Khan Non-Executive Director

Mr. Zarrar Haider Non-Executive Director

Mr. Syed Hashim Raza Zaidi Non-Executive Director

Company Secretary

Mr. Amar Naseer

Audit Committee

Mr. Fatehali W. Vellani Chairman

Mr. Zaffar A. Khan Member

Mr. M. Qaysar Alam Member

Mr. Ayub Vohra Internal Auditor & Secretary

Auditors

Messrs A.F. Ferguson &Co.

State Life Building No. I-C

I.I. Chundrigar Road

Karachi.

Registered Office

Avari Plaza

Fatima Jinnah Road

Karachi.

Share Registration Office

C/o Ferguson Associates (Pvt) Ltd

State Life Building No. 1-A

I.I. Chundrigar Road

Karachi.

B) SWOT ANAYLSIS

STRENGTHS:

Ø      COOPERATIVE:

They are more cooperative with each other and look like a one family members.

Ø      SINCERE WITH WORKS

They seem to be very honest with work.

Ø      INTERACTIVE

They are very interactive with each other at work place.

Ø      MORE CONSUMER PRODUCTS

They have more consumer products and can capture more of the market as compared to their competitors.

Ø      EMPLOYEES LOYALITY

Their employees are very loyal to them because they are pay and facilitate to them very well by every aspect.

Ø      MARKETING STRATEGIES

They have strong in their marketing strategies.

WEAKNESS:

I did not see even any weakness in Unilever Brothers in brand activation department.

OPPORTUNITIES:

Ø      INCREASE THEIR PRODUCT LINES

They can increase more their product lines in the view of their competitors. They must increase product line in food line.

THREATS:

Ø      INCREASING IN NO OF COMPETITORS

Increasing of companies as their competitors is threat for them. They should do more work on their marketing strategies.

C)  MARKETING STRATEGY:

Unilever's strategy is to focus research and development and marketing on leading brands, that is, those that are most in demand from consumers.

They make the well advertisements and chose proper media to get positioning in their consumers minds they make the promotional activities like incentives to their consumers & distribution strategy, brand activation activities they recently did work on their new product Rexona Deodorant. They hired “Wasim Akram” celebrity as their brand ambassador to introduce Rexona. They conducted activities in colleges and universities to aware and trial the new product Rexona to their target consumers.

Their new promotional strategies have to give Scholarship in college or universities women for their product Fair and Lovely. Uni Lever give their consumers to more incentives in the form of scholarship, lucky draw gifts etc….

Meeting consumer needs

Through their extensive knowledge of trends identified today, they continue to develop brands to meet the needs of our consumers tomorrow.

D) COMETITIVE STRETEGY:

Unilever competitive strategies are very intelligent. They fully consider their competitors what they are doing? What will be their next strategies? What is going in market? What their customers needs and wants? They spend more on research & development, advertisement, promotional activities, and brand activation activities as compared to their competitors.

 4)    LEARNING AS AN INTERN

There are following learning points for me in the Unilever Brothers Pakistan.

A)    DUTIES:

Basically I worked at their brand activation department. In the brand activation department there were so many brands under working. I worked for the activation of Rexona Deodorant to execute its ground activities.                        

BRAND ACTIVATION:

 The words brand activation has more than one meaning in Unilever. They are used to describe both

1)     A set of skills around a core marketing process.

2)     A specific role or job title to active the brand in consumer mind.

It is the description of a core marketing process in which we are all involved a process which is about bringing brand alive for consumers.

OBJECTIVES OF BRAND ACTIVATION:

As brand activation is a strategic activity, it is central to the way a brand achieves its marketing objectives and its communication objectives.

The marketing of brands should be as integrated as possible. The various programs create behind different activities (like launches, re-launches, trial generation, loyalty programs).

Single and clear marketing objectives will lead brand activation teams to develop stronger and more consistent programs. Also it will provide a clear guide on what to measure and how to measure the different activities.

REXONA DATE WITH FATE:

I worked for the Rexona brand activation activity that is recently going on and also held in our campus with the name of “REXONA DATE WITH FATE”. The plan of this activity is in three cities of the Pakistan. KARACHI, LAHORE, ISLAMABAD. And I did work in KHI for this activity.

There are three phases of brand activation Phase1, Phase2, Phase3 for complete the rexona activity. But they had to Assigned me only for phases1&2. Here is below the chart of phases.

     More then two weeks I worked for Phase1 activity.

                                             PHASE#1 PLAN

PHASE 1:

In phase1 there were plan to survey the universities to check the performance of “Bulls Eye” (third party that is working with Unilever for handle their external execution activities). To check that party what they are doing? And how is going the sample trial to students? Ambassador’s knowledge about brand? Kiosk placement, posters and banners condition, announcements in universities about activity, working of ambassadors to interact with students about brand, student’s involvement etc… I all this worked done with my execution manager. It was totally field work we went to the colleges according to schedule where “Wasim Akram” had to visit. 

                         PHASE#1 EXECUTION

Activity:         QA update, Rexona Anti-presperant Deodorant, Phase I – Free Sampling in Colleges & Phase II announcement.

Date:              Wednesday Aug 16, 2006; Agency:           Bull’s Eye      

College:        First College – CBM, Korangi

Activity:         QA update, Rexona Anti-presperant Deodorant, Phase I – Free Sampling in Colleges & Phase II announcement.

Date:              Wednesday Aug 16, 2006; Agency:           Bull’s Eye      

College:        Second College – IBT, Korangi

Activity:         QA update, Rexona Anti-presperant Deodorant, Phase I – Free Sampling in Colleges & Phase II announcement.

Date:              Wednesday Aug 16, 2006; Agency:           Bull’s Eye      

College:        Third College – ZABIST, 90 Clifton

Activity:         QA update, Rexona Anti-presperant Deodorant, Phase I – Free Sampling in Colleges & Phase II announcement.

Date:              Tuesday Aug 22nd, 2006;     Agency:         Bull’s Eye      

College:        PEF College, PECHS BLOCK 6.

                                         PHASE#2 PLANS

PHASE 2:

Phase2 was basically a real implementation of all planning. It was the day when celebrity wasim akram had to come to visits the colleges. I was with my planning and execution manager we were at the college before the time to check the all status and performance by “Bulls Eye” of final day. We did survey and lead them, how should be done this? And how should be do this? And after that Wasim Akram came and did start the activity.

Activity was basically about the introduction about brand awareness in students mind. Activity consisted of waseem challenges to students for select the Mr.Right and Miss.Rright. And for the selected persons there were prises. Wseem Challenges had consisted of Physical and Mental challenges. In Physical challenges there were some small segments to achieve like hand bouncing, head bouncing, bat ball bouncing etc…. and in mental challenges there were some quizzes to ask from students and for students they had to gave the answer. And for the all over winning person there was a gift of Mr.Right and Miss.Right.

And our assignment was to observe the all activity and see where the mistakes and lackneses were. How should to improve it? What we did observe its all in the below tables.

                            PHASE#2 EXECUTIONS

Activity:      QA update, Rexona Anti-presperant Deodorant, Phase 2 – Activity execution.

Date:           Monday Aug 21, 2006; Agency:  Bull’s Eye     

College:      First College – INDUS COLLEGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Activity:      QA update, Rexona Anti-presperant Deodorant, Phase 2 – Activity execution.

Date:           Monday Aug 21, 2006; Agency:  Bull’s Eye     

College:      Second College – CBM, KORANGI

Activity:      QA update, Rexona Anti-presperant Deodorant, Phase 2 – Activity execution.

Date:           Monday Aug 21, 2006; Agency:  Bull’s Eye     

College:      Third College – BISTEK, KORANGI

Activity:      QA update, Rexona Anti-presperant Deodorant, Phase 2 – Activity execution.

Date:           Monday Aug 21, 2006; Agency:  Bull’s Eye     

College:      Second College – ZABIST, 90 Clifton

Activity:      QA update, Rexona Anti-presperant Deodorant, Phase 2 – Activity execution.

Date:           Tuesday Aug 22, 2006; Agency: Bull’s Eye     

College:      Fifth College – DHA DEGREE COLLEGE FOR BOYS             

B)   ACCOMPLISHMENTS

My accomplishments was perfect regarding my assignments, I did my work heartedly with full of my passion, my manager was very cooperative they told me on every step about my assignments what and how should I do it?. I learnt a lot about brand activation. Why it is making? And how it is to be implemented?

C)    NEW KNOWLEDGE ACQUIRED

During the internship there is practical knowledge acquired about the Uni Lever Brothers. What activities are they performed about brand activation and what are infrastructures of their organization? Also learnt about work and operations of brand activation department.

How is the brand activation department work?

Brand activation department is work for the all products of Uni Lever Brothers. It has one brand activation manager and there are four planners under that manager. All the brand managers of brands are come to activation manager for their brand activation activities and discuss to them and tell them what they want basically? And after that activation manager are assign to their planners to work on that assignments? After completion of planning they report back to activation manager about their work. After further evaluation activation manager assign to their Execution manager that is basically field activities execution manager. Execution manager does work as according to brand activation manager. He goes to in fields and executes the activities in field.

What are their duties?

Their duties are basically to make brand activation plan as brand manager’s demands and to work on them to make the schedule of the all activities and execute in the field.

Behaviors of the organization:

Other things that I have learnt at above to my assignment were the infrastructure of the organization. Their work potential, interaction to each other, cooperation, done work at their right time, punctuality in their arrival/s to office, friendly environment, talented peoples, well communication skills, well personalized, well dressings, and intelligent  their work assignments.

D)    PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED:

There were no many problems encountered for me rather then communicate in influent English, no doubt there is big flaw for my personality so I should improve it and I will do it.  

E)    HOW EXPERIENCE IMPACT YOUR CAREER:

The experience can impact on my carrier in the following ways.

1) I can easily tell about the interviewer what is brand activation?

2) How does it work?

3) And what are their implications?

4) For what purposes this activity is conduct?

5) What are the benefits of this activity?

6) And how should I improve myself?