Unilever Synthesis

Anglais – Oral Unilever

        Introduction of speaker

Good morning everyone, today I’m going to give a presentation about an anglo-dutch multinational company specialized in producing fast moving consumer goods since 1930.

Just so you know, I’ll be glad to take questions at the end of my presentation.

Does anyone know which company I’m speaking about?

Before starting, can anyone give the name of a product made by this company?

• Knorr
• Dove
• Axe
• Lipton

Well you are right, Unilever produces this brands owns over 400 brands today, but the most surprising thing I discovered about this company is that she used to own 2000 brands.

        Main points of presentation

I have divided my presentation into 2 parts:

        Firstly, I’m going to give you some knowledge about the company.

        Secondly, I’ll try to go further about this company by giving you some elements that doesn’t make Unilever such a good company.

        Presentation

To start off, I am going to give you some background information about this company. Unilever was formed in 1930 by a merger of the Dutch margarine company named Margarine Uni and the British soap maker: Lever Brothers, to create one of the largest consumer goods company, currently the third behind P&G and Nestlé. The purpose of this merger was to profit from the shared use of palm oil needed to make margarine and soap. As you guessed, the name of the company comes from the contraction of this two entities (Schéma).

The history of Unilever success is connected to the big events, which the firm went through: the recession, world wars, the change in the consumer’s lifestyle, and the progress of technology.  But at every historical turn Unilever succeeded in creating products that help people enjoy their lives, for example by reducing the time of chores, by improving their nutrition and allowing people to take a better care of themselves.

To go back to what I was saying at the beginning of my presentation, Unilever has a large portfolio brands gathering into three categories:

• Personal care
• Home care
• Food

Unilever has over 400 brands but focuses just on 14 with sales of over 1 billion euros:

→ Tableau recapitulatif

Even so, over 150 million consumers choose Unilever products everyday, in almost every country in the world.  To make that happen, Unilever has 174,000 employees over the world, with 42% of women managers and 1 billion euros invested in R&D. Sales in 2013, were an astonishing 49.3 billion euros, with a net profit of 5.3 billion euros.

That was a quick presentation of the company. Now, to move on to my next point, I would like to speak about a much more darker side of Unilever.