ASSIGNMENT NO: 01

Management Information
Systems
Unilever Sri Lanka Limited

Name: L.U. Dissanayake

Registration No: 17214
MBA 2017
Post Graduate Institute of Agriculture
University of Peradeniya
 Table of Contents

1) Background of the Company……………………………….……………………………02

2) IT Systems Used in the Unilever…………………….…………………………………..05

3) Strategic business objectives expected to be achieved

through the MIS application……………………………………………………………..09

4) List the new Information Systems you would like to have for your organization to
improve its performance……………………………………...………………………...10

5) Select the most suitable Information System from the above list in section 04 and
discuss the functionalities you would like to have in detail…………………………....10

6) Discuss organizational, management and technological

dimensions of the organization………………………………………………………….12

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 01) Background of the Company

Introduction

Unilever is multinational consumer goods company. It is a multinational corporation which was

formed by Dutch and British company’s joint venture. Unilever owns 400 brands worldwide.

Unilever Sri Lanka is the largest fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) company in Sri Lanka,
as well as one of the largest multinationals operating in the country. We have two factories at
Horana and Agarapathana. The Unilever Head Office located in Colombo 14. Unilever Sri
Lanka, previously known as Lever Brothers Ceylon Limited was incorporated in 1938. Unilever
Sri Lanka provides 29 strong brands that are leaders in the categories that they operate in. It is
fast moving consumer goods company. Unilever have local manufacturing facilities as well as
imported products also. Its products are mainly based in Home Care, Personal Care and Foods.
Its major categories include Household care, fabric cleaning, skin cleansing, skin care, oral care,
hair care, tea, spreads, toilet cleaning, personal grooming, water.

The brands in Unilever are Astra, Axe, Bru, Ceylonta, Clear, Close Up, Comfort, Domex, Dove,
Fair & Lovely, Flora, Knorr, Laojee, Lipton, Lifebuoy, Lux, Marmite, Pears, Ponds, Pureit,
Rexona, Rin, Signal, Sunsilk, Sunlight, Surf Excel, Vaseline, Vim and Wonderlight.

On any day, 2.5 billion people use Unilever products to look good, feel good and get more out of
life giving us a unique opportunity to build a brighter future.

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Company Vision

Our vision is to grow our business, while decoupling our environmental footprint from our
growth and increasing our positive social impact.

Purpose, values & principles

Our Corporate Purpose states that to succeed requires "the highest standards of corporate
behavior towards everyone we work with, the communities we touch, and the environment on
which we have an impact."

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Information Technology in Unilever

Information technology (IT) is concerned with the development, management, and use of
computer-based information systems. Unilever Information Technology System is global
information controlled by a global chief officer, with a strategy to deliver competitive and cost
effective IT solutions to support the business. A common technology framework and standards
for planning, key technologies, processes, and information services allow Unilever to leverage its
scale in IT.

For example, this approach is supporting the setting up and the operation of regional shared
services centers for back office operations notably in Finance and Human Resources, which in
some cases are outsourced. The IT function is a key enabler for the One Unilever change from a
multi-local to a globally associated business through Improving IT capabilities and processes
Improving overall IT infrastructure and service value Strategic outsourcing in selected key areas.
The implementation across the group of a world –class harmonized ERP system in each region in
support of the One Unilever programme is continuing well. Unilever partners with a few major
suppliers to develop the minimum number of non-overlapping IT systems needed to deliver the
business objectives. This promotes fundamental simplification flexibility and agility faster
implementation and reduced cost.

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 02) IT Systems Used in the Unilever

1) Unilever Supplier Qualification System

The Unilever Supplier Qualification System (USQS) is for all suppliers of products and services
to Unilever. By being requested to register in USQS, suppliers will be evaluated against the
principles detailed in the Unilever Responsible Sourcing Policy (RSP). The RSP represents the
way that Unilever seeks to operate and in addition, the values they expect from their suppliers.

By going through the USQS process, Unilever will consider supplier practices and policies and
seeks guarantee that they bring into line with the values of the RSP. As a multi-national
company, their Procurement team purchases from tens of thousands of suppliers worldwide. The
Supplier Qualification System helps Unilever to succeed which suppliers we will do business
with. USQS forms part of their selection and ongoing business process.

Unilever’s Responsible Sourcing Policy is for all of their suppliers. (This policy include 12
fundamental principles) In USQS, they seek to guarantee that, as a minimum, their suppliers are
working to the mandatory principles of their policy and any have or are willing to develop a
policy to demonstrate this.

USQS for Unilever

USQS provides a single Global stand for Unilever to value its supply base.

USQS will help Unilever to:

 Identify approved suppliers for the products and services they want to buy
 Better understand the possible risks of buying products or services in all geographies
 Encourage developments in supplier standards

The system will rationalize the supplier requirement process, increase their risk management and
position them to fulfill with future changes to regulations and legislation on worldwide

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 2) BPCS – Business Planning and Control System

This system facilitates entire manufacturing system. Business Planning and Control System
(BPCS) is a general system of application programs for manufacturing and other industries that
is industrialized and sold by Systems Software Associates (SSA). SSA reports that BPCS is
installed at over 8,000 business sites globally.

The BPCS applications are divided into:

 Configurable enterprise financials (This includes accounts receivable and payable, cost
accounting, remittance processing, and budgeting and analysis)
 Supply chain management applications (This includes sale performance management,
purchasing, promotion, inventory management, and forecasting)
 Multi-mode manufacturing applications (This includes planning, production scheduling,
capacity planning, shop floor control, and plant maintenance)

The key concepts in BPCS contain:

 A general devotion to programming values for distributed object computing (includes

Common Object Request Broker Architecture) and other values
 A sophisticated use of client/server computing and object data sources
 Acceptance of the Microsoft Windows Desktop user interface for all end users site-wide
 A guided workstation-based system of installation

BPCS was established by System Software Associates (SSA), which later became SSA Global
Technologies (which was then acquired by Infor Global Solutions), and is used to regulator the
operations of manufacturing companies. BPCS contains MRP logic to manufacturing operations,
provided there are high standards of data validity such as engineering specifications and
inventory accuracy. It runs on several systems, with the IBM System (also known as IBM
AS/400 or IBM eServer iSeries), being most standard. It is written in As/Set, RPG, SQL and
other IBM languages somewhat exclusive to the System.

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 3) Customer Relationship Management System (CRM)

Customer Relationship Management System helps to the company to achieve customer intimacy.
It is a widely implemented model for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients,
and sales prospects. It includes using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize
business processes mainly sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and
technical support. The overall goals are to find, attract, and attract new clients, service and retain
those the company already has, entice former clients to return, and reduce the costs of marketing
and client service. Customer relationship management defines a company-wide business strategy
including customer-interface departments as well as other departments. Measuring and valuing
customer relationships is critical to implementing this strategy.

4) Human Resource Information System

The Unilever uses PeopleSoft software to associate with human resource management and
customer relationship management

PeopleSoft, Inc. was a firm that providing human resource management systems (HRMS) and
customer relationship management (CRM) software, as well as software resolutions to large
corporations and organizations. It was a self-governing company until Oracle Corporation took
acquirement over it in 2005. The marketing of PeopleSoft name and product line are now
through by Oracle.

Unilever implemented by PeopleSoft since 2003 for its human resource management,
PeopleSoft, at that time, was an object of much assumption and doubt with the owners ( HR
Managers ) and the end-users ( HR Officers ), But PeopleSoft 7.5 had stopped being used for a
while in Unilever due to improper working. After an accurate inspection it was found out that
oracle database was the reason for the inappropriate working of PeopleSoft.

A "big 5" consultancy which was a PeopleSoft funding company had left the whole
implementation of PeopleSoft in an unbalanced state and had to quit its operations from
Unilevers. This problem was further handled by CMSS Pvt Ltd who analyzed the database
thoroughly and restored the database table by table. They not only stabilized the system and
made it usable, but also integrated the system with many of their other HR applications.

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 5) Performance Development and Planning system (PDP)

It is benefited to keep a track of the performance the employees. The process allows each staff
member to understand their true value-added to the organization. It supports them in setting
goals and objectives that which would growth of their ability to contribute to the success of the
organization.

The PDP software had to be developed such a way that it could be combined with PeopleSoft
because it had all its employees details kept in it and with a feature for real-time data bridge
between PeopleSoft and PDP it could be easily be organized and used as required.

6) Performance Appraisal and Competency Enhancement system (PACE)

Performance appraisals of employees are required to understand each employee's abilities,

competencies and relative value and worth for the organization. The employees are graded in
terms of their performances.

It is necessary to measure the performance of the employees and the organization, it benefits in
proving the progress towards the desired goals and aims and which further helps in upgrading of
the performance. Past performances of the employees are taken into account and are further it
focuses on the upgrading of the future performance of the employees. As well as it helps the
individual performances in bring into line with the organizational goals. It also benefits them to
review their own performances.

It was implemented later 2003 and is used till date. CMSS associate with development, support,
optimization, enhancement and customization of PACE. Unilever wanted a PACE system for its
employees, based on the Performance Management Model followed at Unilever.

7) Ariba

Ariba is Unilever’s online buying system which enables purchase of non-production items to be
made at volume negotiated prices from suppliers. There are catalog suppliers and non-catalog
suppliers.

E.g.: We can buy posters, banners, coupons, danglers, wobblers (POSM) which we are used for
our promotional campaigns.

We have to pay for supplies through this system.

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 03) Strategic business objectives expected to be achieved through the MIS
applications

Because of the MIS applications we have achieved many more business objectives in today’s
world with rapid growth.

Unilever e-business Strategy: Unilever e-business strategy continues to grow, application of

Ariba and the creation of an online buying system for making certain types of purchases from
suppliers. Our e-business strategy focuses primarily on the use of the internet and information
technologies to achieve operational efficiencies in dealing with suppliers and in utilizing its
distribution network. As early as February 2000, Unilever was making plan to invest heavily in
electronic commerce, in an effort to slash costs, radically change its supply chain and reach out
to consumers. The company recognized that it could achieve significant savings by using internet
to - buy everything from raw material to card board. Therefore we can purchase items (POSM)
that want to promotional activities by low cost.

Unilever’s operations are increasingly dependent on MIS. They interrelate automatically with
customers, suppliers and consumers in ways which place ever greater importance on the need for
secure and reliable IT systems and infrastructure and careful management of the information that
is in their possession. This also increases the risk from unauthorized access and misapplication of
sensitive information. Hardware that runs and manages central operating data is fully backed up
with separate contingency systems to deliver real time backup operations should ever be
required. Policies on data access, privacy, and protection of information are regularly reviewed
and employees are trained to understand the requirements.

The Unilever MIS allows effective and more efficient communication with customers, suppliers,
electronic exchanges and marketplaces. Therefore it helps connectivity to the company’s internal
applications. Unilever operates in more than a hundred countries on five continents using various
Electronic Data Interchange standards and Value-added Networks. The company wanted to
achieve closer teamwork with all sections of the Value Chain in order to increase revenue,
market share and maximize competitive advantage.

The MIS solutions of Unilever state two major parts, providing a common data infrastructure for
Unilever’s global operations, and improving its relationships with trading partners. It enables
Unilever to improve efficiency and reach new markets. The objective is to drive efficiency and
effectiveness through an end-to-end solution which has been developed specifically to handle the
exclusive needs of the global Consumer Packaged Goods Company. The end result is greater
than before business capability through leading edge technology initiatives.

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 04) List the new Information Systems you would like to have for your organization
to improve its performance

I. Automate the shuttle service using a mobile application.

II. Transaction processing system that can use for Operational Managers because they take
decisions in day to day.

III. Knowledge work system for who takes knowledge level decisions for market researches,
brand designs and procurement.

IV. Decision Support System can help to take the managerial level decisions (e.g.: Resource
allocation etc.)

05) Select the most suitable Information System from the above list in section 04and
discuss the functionalities you would like to have in detail.

Automate the shuttle service using a mobile application.

This transport booking System is a mobile application that allows employee book shuttle
services, booking shuttle time and the destination online. This system is established for all the
office users after gaining access from the administrator. Shuttle Service System provides a van or
staff bus for transportation system, a facility to put request and amend request which need an
instant and quick requesting. This system can be used by the users in performing online
requesting via internet for their transport booking. Users can use this application directly on their
mobile phone. The use of this application overcomes limitations of the recording data. Hence
shuttle booking system deals with maintenance of records of each passenger who had reserved a
transport for the destination. It also includes maintenance of information like schedule and
details of each vehicle. Currently the company (Unilever) does not maintain a proper
transportation system. Due to this, sometimes a lot of problems occur and employees were facing
many disputes when they have field visits. As well as it takes a lot of time. Therefore employees
were demotivated and they did not give their maximum to achieve organizational goals. To solve
the above problem it’s better to have shuttle service system. This system has three components
for the employee. First component helps the employee to enquire the availability of transport in a
particular destination at particular time, the second component put requesting and with the third
component he/she can amend a reserved request. There are two components for administer. First
component is gaining access for the employee. Second one, generate a data base sheet for the
recording data.

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Description of the system

The system requires very low system resources and the system will work in almost all
configurations (Android, IOs, and Windows).

It has got following features:

• It will ensure data accuracy.

• Records will be efficiently maintained by DBMS.

• Employee can request easily.

• Employee can also amend their request easily.

• Administer can easily manage recorded details.

User Activities

The most common activities carried out by employee are illustrated bellow

• The employee can sign up registration with the system

• The registered employee can login to the system

• The employee can check for the available route service

• The user can request destination and time

• The user can also amend destination and time

Administrator Activities

• The administrator will verify the entire registered employee, and allow them to login to the
system

• The administrator can check requested details of the employees

• The administrator can generate report as well

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 06) Discuss organizational, management and technological dimensions of the
organization.

Organization Dimensions: The organization dimension of information systems includes issues

such as the organization’s culture, business process, hierarchy, functional specialties, political
interest groups and people.

Unilever has also built strong relations with its subsidiary businesses around the world for its
teas and coffees, as much of the raw material required for food stuffs is sourced from Lathin
American and African countries,

E.g.: cocoa, vanilla, palm oil and coffee beans.

To scope the size and level of diversity that they now control, Unilever have required acquiring a
further brand or manufacturing interest at the rate of about one per year for the last ten years.

Management Dimensions: The management dimension of information systems involves

allocating human resources, allocating financial resources, setting organizational strategies, new
products and services and re-creating the organization if necessary

Technology Dimensions: This is consists with computer software, computer hardware, and
networking and data management technology.

In support of Unilever’s Generation 2 programme, they are providing a global private video
cloud that enables unified internal and external visual communication from any device. As well
as broad range of managed services are delivered. They managed the entire global installation
and integration of the project, a process that was completed in just seven months.

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