Corporation and Unilever Decentralized Structure Essay Example

about 15 percent of sales, include Calvin Klein cosmetics, Pepsodent toothpaste brands, Faberge hair care products, and Vaseline skin lotions. Food products account for the remaining 60 percent of sale and include strong offering in margarine (where Uniliver’s market share in most countries exceeds 70 percent), tea, ice-cream, frozen foods, and akery products. Historically, Uniliver was organized on the decentralized basis. Subsidiary companies in each major national market were responsible for the production, marketing, sales, and distribution of product in that market. In Western Europe, for example, the company had 17 subsidiaries in the early 1990s, each focused on the different national market. Each was a profit center and each was held accountable for its own performance. This decentralization was viewed as source of strength.

The structure allowed local managers to match product offering and marketing strategy to local tastes and preferences and to alter sale and distribution strategic to fit the prevailing retail system. To drive the localization, Uniliver recruited local managers to run local organization, the U. S. subsidiary (Lever Brother) was run by Americans, the Indian subsidiary by Indian subsidiary by Indian and so on. By the mid-1990s, this decentralized structure was increasingly out of step with a rapidly changing competitive environment. Uniliver’s global competitors, which include the Swiss firm Nestle’ and Procter&Gamble from United States