Introduction

Generic Competitive strategy helps an organization achieve core competencies, keep its focus on
satisfying the customer needs and preferences to achieve economies of scale and profit above average.
It also dictate the actions need to be taken to provide value to customers and gain a competitive
position in the industry by outperforming its rivals and competitors and also by fully utilizing its core
competencies in a particular, individual product or in services.

The foundation of any business-level starategy is the customers of an organization. What they need,
what services they want and they can be ultimately satisfied, all these matters are concerned with the
upper-level management and thus the importance of business level strategy is also very crucial for these
factors.

Generic competitive strategy of Unilever is very important determinant of its overall performance and
market performance. It takes care of its customers by focusing on demographic, geographic, lifestyle
choices, tastes and values, personality traits, consumption patterns and brand loyalty.

About Unilever

Unilever is a multinational corporation selling consumer goods including foods, beverages, cleaning
agents and personal care products. Unilever is a dual-listed company consisting of Unilever NV in
Rotterdam and Unilever PLC in London.

Unilever owns more than 400 brands including 11 "billion-dollar brands", which each achieve annual
sales in excess of €1 billion.

Origin of ownership : UK/Netherlands

Geographical presence : Operates in 100 countries

Products' Catagories of Unilever

A) Home and personal care:

1) Personal Wash

Lux, Breeze, Lifebuoy, Dove, Liril, Hamam, Rexona

2) Laundry

Surf Excel, Rin, Wheel

3) Skin Care
Glow and lovely, Pond's, Aviance

4) Hair Care

Sunsilk Naturals, Clinic, Dove

5) Oral Care

Pepsodent, Close up

6) Deodorants

Axe, Rexona

7) Colour Cosmetics

Lakme

8)Ayurvedic personal and health care

Ayush

B)Foods

1) Tea

Brooke Bond, Lipton

2) Coffee

Brooke Bond Bru

3) Foods

Kissankwality, Walls, Knor, Annapurna

C) Water purifier

Pureit

Generic Competitive Strategy of Unilever

Unilever is a multinational company. It operates its business worldwide. It has a different types,
catagories, different dimensional products for different types and ages people. So it requires or needs a
few even all the five generic competitive strategies. It basically uses Broad differentiation. But others
haven't less importance to it. In a word, the success of unilever company depends on its fine
combination and exact used strategies at the required area.
It uses all of the five generic competitive strategies in various times, in various area, in various reason
etc. They are explained below with clear examples:

Broad Differentiation

Differentiating the firm's products offering from rivals' with attributes that appeal to a broad spectrum
of buyers.

Unilever is providing value to its customers through unique features and characteristics of its products.
This is done through high quality, features, high customer service, rapid product innovation, advanced
technological features, image management, etc Unilever Creates Value by:

* Lowering Buyers' Costs with Higher quality and quicker response to problems.

* Sustainability

* Higher quality products

* Creating barriers by perceptions of uniqueness and reputation

* Creating high switching costs through differentiation and uniqueness

* Wide product line

* Efficient customer service and focus on customers’ needs

* Operating all over the world

Based on Porter’s Generic Strategy Framework, the company’s ‘good’ strategy is based on selecting a
generic strategy ‘Differentiation’ which allowed it to become profitable within the industry. In this
strategy, the company currently aims at building competitive advantage as it satisfied the specific
preferences and needs of consumers.

Currently, the company uses broad differentiation where the focus of company is to build on
characteristics and features which make its products stand out of the rivals.

For instance, the company make changes in its personal care product Dove Cream Bars for satisfying the
consumer need for soaps which are not drying or harsh.

In spite of having high prices comparatively, these products are competitive as Dove stand out from
competitors which emphasize more on cleaning instead of moisturizing. Therefore, Unilever through this
strategy effectively attract customers to its specially designed consumer products. This generic strategy
of differentiation also matches with the mission and vision statement of the company where the aim is
to support sustainability globally while increasing vitality in the lives of consumers.
Focused Differentiation

Concentrating on a narrow buyer segment by meeting specific tastes and requirements of niche
members.

Unilever focus more on the demographic features of population, it targets all age groups and offer a
wide variety of products to the people of all ages. It also focus on the emerging markets like a few years
ago it started to focus more on India as well as Bangladesh because its an emerging market. Apart from
that its wide variety of products more and its attention to its value chain make it capture a big market
share. It focuses on customer needs and customer satisfaction. It focuses on innovation, quality and
R&D.

For instance, it focuses on countries individually, makes a narrow target market and try to fill the
demand of that country's individual's tastes and preferences as well as their requirements. For example:
Kissan (Ketchups, squashes & jams) for India & Pakistan. Another one is Cream Silk (conditioner) for
Philippines.

Some other examples of focused differentiation are Horlicks for Children who are at the age of 8-14,
Mother Horlicks for Pregnant woman, Ponds Anti Aging Cream & Face Wash for those woman who are
at 35+ aged.

Overall Low Cost Strategy

Overall low cost strategy involves gaining a competitive advantage by lowering the cost. Overall low cost
strategy is one of the best generic strategy that Unilever uses in various consumer markets. It has a
broad market target.

It ensures the overall low cost of the product with good quality from the competitors. The company
ensure this cost by reducing the production, transportation and marketing cost with worldwide
operation.

Unilever compete for a wide range of customers based on price. Its products Prices are based on
internal efficiency to obtain a margin that allows it to sustain its business above average profit or returns
and cost to the customers. Based on this cost and return analysis that determine the price, make
customers to purchase a particular product. This strategy works well when the product or service is
standardize, have generic qualities, fulfill customer needs and offer lowest price with best quality. In
order to become a cost leader a business should keep an eye on the price strategy followed by its
competitors and its continuous efforts to keep its prices low relative to its competitors.

This can include:

* Lower cost products with better quality than rivals.

* Building efficient production facilities

* Maintain tight control over production and overhead costs

* Minimize cost of sales, R&D, and service

* Focusing on primary and support activities to reduce cost related to these activities

* Configuring the value chain

For instance,

# Unilever use worldwide operation that ensure the overall low cost. For example : If Unilever want to
take dove soap from UK and sell in the Bangladesh the cost will be high. Rather they producing this
product in bangladesh and selling it in a low price.

# Unilever take most of the raw material from local market that ensure overall low cost. Example: They
take most of the ingredients from Bangladesh for producing the products of unilever bangladesh.

# Unilever provide quality product in a comparetive low price from its competitors. For instance, Sunsilk
Shampoo's price is comparatively low from Head & Shoulder(P&G).

#This strategy allows Unilever to expand the market share by targeting the middle class, which makes
the largest proportion of overall consumer in most of the countries. Middle class consumers generally
place high importance to the pricing factor and cost leadership is the best strategy to meet their
demand.

Focused Low Cost Strategy

Focus is the third generic competitive strategy that encourages companies to concentrate their
resources on expanding the narrowly targeted segments. When companies adopt the focus strategy,
they serve particular market segments and base their competitive advantages.

Unilever adopts the focus strategy both in terms of low cost and offering the best value. The low-cost
focus strategy is adopted by serving the needs of a niche market segment at the lowest possible price.
While, best value focus strategy is adopted by emphasizing over the taste, size and design of the product
that could best match the customers’ needs and requirements.

By focusing on product prices, Unilever revises its branding strategies and brings continuous changes in
the product designing and packaging with low price to satisfy the customers’ psychological expectations
and maximize the fullfillment of targeted segments.

For instance, they target a narrow market segment of low income people. In Bangladesh, they produce
shampoos' minipack for that poor consumers which rate is Sunsilk-1 or 2 Taka, Dove-3 Taka, Clinic- 1
Taka etc. Again, they focus a lower middle class people and make Horlicks' minipack which is at 10 Taka.
In here, they focus the specific customers to buy these products. And they fix the price low so that the
poor people can buy these products.

That means their narrow market segment is lower middle class and lower class people and the prices are
very low as their affordability to buy that.

Best Cost Provider Strategy

Giving Customer more value for the money by offering upscale product attributes at a lower cost than
rivals. That means it emphasises both low cost and upscale difference, the goal being to keep costs and
prices lower than those of other providers of comparable quality and features.

For instance, Glow and Lovely day cream is cheaper with high quality than Garnier White Speed day
cream. Another example is Ponds White Beauty. Its cheaper than L'Oreal White Perfect. For more
example, Lakme Eyeliner is more acceptable with customers to get more value of their money than
L'Oreal Paris Eyeliner.

Conclusion

One major reason behind the success of Unilever is its ability to choose the right combination of
proposed generic competitive strategies based on prevailing competitive and market conditions. Overall,
the analysis suggests that risks and costs associated with each generic strategy vary and the firm's
choice of each is linked with the generic competitive strategies.

References

http://worldofyourchoice.blogspot.com/2013/03/unilevers-business-level-strategy.html?m=1

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_Unilever_brands

http://panmore.com/unilever-generic-strategy-intensive-growth-strategies#:~:text=Unilever%20uses
%20broad%20differentiation%20as,products%20stand%20out%20against%20competitors.

https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/business-39009072