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LO212 Field Trip at SCG Logistics Management Co., Ltd. & V. Unilever Thai Trading Limited


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Written By Nattapon Maythapak, BBA #23
 
On Friday November 17, BBA Logistic class had such a great opportunity to visit global company, Unilever, and a nationally well-known company, SCG. We had a chance to attend the seminar regarding Unilever Business Development, Unilever Network, and SCG Logistics department Not only that, we had a company tour where we are taken around to see how working environment be like.
 
Unilever is a global company that manufactures consumer goods from home care, personal care as well as food and drink, in total of 20 brands under company’s portfolio. Unilever heavily focuses on its end consumers that they really take consumers into account on every step and every thing they do. Their current vision is to grow the business, reduce environmental risks, and make impacts to the society. Not surprisingly, Unilever achieved 196 billion euros in previous year in a global scale.
 
Nowadays, Unilever Thailand emphasizes on 3 key issues. First, Digital trend that internet penetration rate has increased dramatically in the past few years. Also, there are more smartphone than the Thailand population, and lastly consumers use social media in their everyday life more than ever. Secondly, Omnichannel will be used for key success in the future due to numbers of customer contact points such as from stores, internet, and etc. Therefore, Unilever has to synergize all channels altogether. And lastly, sustainability, they are driving positive change and sustainable growth through their business, their brands and their partners.

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The theory that is mentioned in the seminar, called Innovation Funnel.
Idea Phase -> Feasibility Phase -> Capability Phase -> Market Ready Phase -> Evaluation
 
In Idea Phase, the company identifies all hidden customer needs, which needs to be solved. Followed by feasibility phase, whether that need is actually a pain point or not, and market size of the segment that we are going to capture. In capability phase, manufacturer concern about research and development as well as producing stage, and analyze the feasibility of our future product. Followed by, Market ready phase, marketing is heavily focused in order to create awareness and be in customer’s top of mind, and eventually drive them to purchase stage. Lastly, post launch evaluation stage, it is time for our team to evaluate past performance whether the target is met or there are some improvements which can be better made for further growth in the future. All of the steps taken last for 1.5 - 3 years.
 
For further improvement, as all steps starting to identify the Idea Phase to Evaluation Phase requires 1.5 - 3 years time. From this, it is clear that all process take too much time, which have to be reduced. Otherwise, opportunities identified earlier may not be an opportunity anymore when the product is released into the market. It is recommended that not to cut one or some of the steps, but rather take less time in all steps taken in order to ensure the efficiency for company return on investment as well as to catch up with the trends.

Posted date:  December 25, 2017 by Sochaya T.

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