Renewing Unilever : Transformation and Tradition

Unilever is one of the world's largest suppliers of fast moving consumer goods in foods, home and personal care. It operates in over 100 countries. Its scope and scale make it a unique global corporation. Yet the story of Unilever is not simply a tale of corporate evolution: Unilever is a corporation that has a big impact on the lives of people round the world. Indeed, a Unilever brand can be found in one in every two households worldwide.

Geoffrey Jones, a leading business historian from the Harvard Business School, takes us inside this corporation, which, from its origins in Britain and the Netherlands, has become a worldwide manufacturer of fast moving consumer products. Unilever's operations cover food and home and personal care, and its brands include Lipton, Hellmann's, Birds Eye, Wall's, Surf, Domestos, Comfort, Dove, Sunsilk, Pond's, Signal, Axe, and Ben & Jerry's. - ;Unilever is one of the world's largest suppliers of fast moving consumer goods in foods, home and personal care. It operates in over 100 countries. Its scope and scale make it a unique global corporation. Yet the story of Unilever is not simply a tale of corporate evolution: Unilever is a corporation that has a big impact on the lives of people round the world. Indeed, a Unilever brand can be found in one in every two households worldwide. Geoffrey Jones, a leading business
historian from the Harvard Business School, takes us inside this corporation, which, from its origins in Britain and the Netherlands, has become a worldwide manufacturer of fast moving consumer products. Unilever's operations cover food and home and personal care, and its brands include Lipton, Hellmann's,
Birds Eye, Wall's, Surf, Domestos, Comfort, Dove, Sunsilk, Pond's, Signal, Axe, and Ben & Jerry's.

In particular the book focuses on the evolution of the company over the last half century. Managing such a firm in the era of globalization posed enormous challenges. The book covers the company's strategies and provides compelling evidence of its decision-making, marketing, brand management, innovation, acquisition strategies, corporate culture, and human resource management.

The author has had full access to corporate archives and executives and provides us with a unique insight into the workings and strategies of one of the world's oldest and largest multinationals. - ;Unilever is sprawling business, difficult to describe in 350 pages let alone interpret, and Professor Jones makes a good fist of dealing with the complexity, force-fitting reality into neat chapters without much distortion. - Michael Dowdall, The Business Economist;Overall, this is a very good book and the author lived up to his promise of carrying out independent and critical research about the period between 1965 and 1990 in the history of the company. - Technovation;Winner of The 2007 Wadsworth Prize for Business History - Technovation

Keywords: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS