Unilever Australian Petone Case Analysis
Analysis of the case
Unilever Australian Petone is a striking example of the up-to-date managed company which implements the modern management techniques to keep up with the times. New principles and techniques such as JIT and ECR allow the company to be more effective to satisfy the customer demand, to decrease the ‘waste’ costs including time, resource and materials. At the same time the usage of these techniques involves the thorough understanding and proper implementation of sophisticated methods which demand well coordinated work of the company staff, suppliers and retailers. Any glitches occurred in the work of any sections of the chain can lead to the failure of the whole system. Thus these new techniques can be both good and evil.
There are several critical issues which the Unilever has faced. The most critical issue is the postponed deliveries from overseas. As the company always deals with the small frequent batches without creating a large stock any delays in delivery can lead to the exhaustion of stock. Probably one of the main reasons for all these process malfunctions was the improper work of the suppliers. For companies like Unilever the smooth work of the suppliers is very critical. All the deadlines of the deliveries should be specified in the contracts between Unilever and suppliers. In case of the delay through suppliers’ fault the strict measures (fines) should apply. As Unilever is a big company with large volume of purchases made on a regular basis it can dictate its own will to the supplies rather than agree on their terms.
The contract with suppliers also should specify their responsibilities in case of the absence of the required Certificate of Analysis or non-correspondence of the supplied goods to the required standards of Unilever. The fines applied in case of the default on contract commitments should cover the company’s expenses on the storage of goods in case of the detecting problems with these goods. Thus all the fines
Unilever Australian Petone is a striking example of the up-to-date managed company which implements the modern management techniques to keep up with the times. New principles and techniques such as JIT and ECR allow the company to be more effective to satisfy the customer demand, to decrease the ‘waste’ costs including time, resource and materials. At the same time the usage of these techniques involves the thorough understanding and proper implementation of sophisticated methods which demand well coordinated work of the company staff, suppliers and retailers. Any glitches occurred in the work of any sections of the chain can lead to the failure of the whole system. Thus these new techniques can be both good and evil.
There are several critical issues which the Unilever has faced. The most critical issue is the postponed deliveries from overseas. As the company always deals with the small frequent batches without creating a large stock any delays in delivery can lead to the exhaustion of stock. Probably one of the main reasons for all these process malfunctions was the improper work of the suppliers. For companies like Unilever the smooth work of the suppliers is very critical. All the deadlines of the deliveries should be specified in the contracts between Unilever and suppliers. In case of the delay through suppliers’ fault the strict measures (fines) should apply. As Unilever is a big company with large volume of purchases made on a regular basis it can dictate its own will to the supplies rather than agree on their terms.
The contract with suppliers also should specify their responsibilities in case of the absence of the required Certificate of Analysis or non-correspondence of the supplied goods to the required standards of Unilever. The fines applied in case of the default on contract commitments should cover the company’s expenses on the storage of goods in case of the detecting problems with these goods. Thus all the fines