International business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 8

International business - Essay ExampleUnilever is regarded as the one(a) of the tether fast moving consumer products suppliers. The business environment of Unilever has been transformed in to a more complex and diverse phenomenon with its independent approach to managing an internationally diverse strategic operational environment, supply chain (logistics) and value chain (www.unilever.com).It owns over 400 worlds popular consumer brands of foods, beverages, personal care and cleaning agents thus offer richness and variety to a global customer base in different countries. Its overall business strategy encompasses a series of other segmental operations. Unilever has adopted a functionality-based approach to its logistic operations, value chain management and decision making in the larger context of corporate expansion, both inside the UK market and other regions (Boyle, & Ottensmeyer, 2005). It sells packaged consumer goods to captive consumers who have rarely abandoned the compan y in preference for another. The logic behind its success is to be institute in its mission statement meeting the everyday needs of people everywhere. Thus out of every two households in the world one uses Unilever products. It controls roughly 90 subsidiaries in the world. Its the second largest packaged food company in the world just behind Procter & Gamble (www.unilever.com). Its global electronic meshing of logistics and value chain has little parallel elsewhere.The current global logistic operations strategy at Unilever is largely determined by its Enterprise resource Planning (ERP) strategy, Balanced Score Card (BSC) Framework and Value, Rarity, Inimitability, Organization (VRIO) framework. In ERP the top-down perspective has helped to map out strategic partnerships with a diverse network of suppliers (Jacobs, & Chase, 2010). Thus its ERP techniques have facilitated Unilevers value chain management functions to a greater extent by doing away with tedious and time