WaysUnileverInternationalAchievedAgilityatScale
Agility.
It is something that all organizations crave, particularly now as the world continues to face
supply chain disruption. Online searches for “agile transformation” yield 100 million hits,
proving it is no longer just a term batted around by the IT department.
It is no wonder when 65% of organizations reported a significant impact on their financial
performance after a successful agile transformation and a 30% increase in customer
satisfaction, according to McKinsey’s survey.
Unilever International, the cross-border distribution arm of leading CPG organization
Unilever, have been undergoing an agile transformation for the past few years. They make
shipments all around the world, so most of their goods are made to order, rather than stored in
warehouses.
With over 20,000 units spanning everything from ice cream to deodorant, all of which come
with their own unique regulatory checks, they have a complex profile of data sets and data
points. In fact, they handle over 120,000 shipping documents a year across 33 different
invoicing entities. So, it’s important that they remain agile enough to handle these variables to
remain competitive in today’s demanding market.
As highlighted in their webinar, Unilever International Delivers Customer Excellence in
Cross-Border Commerce, here are three key ways Tan and Mallya achieved agility across their
global operations.
1.Masteredtheirmasterdata
Unilever International has masses of data points, all stored in different locations around the
world. “We have four different SAP instances that don’t talk to each other. The master data is
all different,” explained Tan. “Therefore, the big challenge for us is to make sure that all of
them come to one common data set, so we can generate meaningful reports.”
This is a common issue for organizations that operate in multiple markets, or even just
those with multiple departments. And it’s not just ERPs that need orchestrating. Unilever
International, like most organizations, used to rely on Excel and emails to communicate data
between users.
“As the business grew exponentially, Excel was getting too difficult to handle and manage so
we needed a closed system. Something that was easy to implement and relatively low cost,
with easy and quick development allowing us to work with multiple data sets and integration,”
said Tan.
“We are able to link lots of various data sets in and out of Bizagi. Not only that, but we can
do a lot of pre-configuration and prepopulated views. This allows us users to just get on with
our work. We don’t have to key in the data where it’s already available or put down rulesets
outside of the process.”
Having a centralized system where data doesn’t have to be entered in multiple locations,
with automated processes such as prepopulated views has significantly benefited operations.
The customer pricing process now users an intuitive user interface so unique frameworks can
be created in just 30 days, rather than 90 days, three times faster.
2.Reactedtochanges
One of the cornerstones of an agile approach is the ability to make iterative changes to
processes to help deliver change, fast. This can be a challenge when there are multiple factors
to consider. Unilever International has different pricing models based on different customers,
for example, retailers vs distributors, with additional factors such as sourcing and destination
countries all affecting pricing.
“It’s important to ensure that the pricing process is modeled properly and approved by all
the relevant people who need to approve it as part of the company policy,” said Mallya. This
has never been more important than in today’s volatile market. But regardless of external
factors, organizations also need to be prepared for internal changes that can hold up their
operations.
Tan painted a picture that is familiar to many of us: “Imagine the approval process is
assigned to one person, and if that person leaves, how are you going to update that in the
process? That whole end-to-end automation is critical. We also need to make sure we always
know the status of the process and ensure that those processes are complying with financial
controls, such as the schedule of authority for approvals.”
Their pricing framework management process alone has 26 approvers across 22 countries.
It’s vital to have the ability to amend the approver within the process so that the pricing, and
ultimately delivery of goods to customers is not held up.
3.Documentedprocessesbeforeautomation
When looking at large-scale digital and agile transformation projects, it’s easy (and
understandable) to want to dive straight in. Most organizations want to see orchestration and
automation early. But it’s worth taking a step back to evaluate your situation and your business
processes first. This is what Tan and her team found.
“When we first started out in 2019, it was a journey of discovery for us… We did not
document the processes in the way we should have. We would take a template and automate
it. But it’s not as straightforward as that. You need to understand the problems you are trying
to solve and know the output you want to see because a process is supposed to help you to
resolve something. It’s not automating for the sake of automating,” said Tan.
Yes, an agile approach often includes multiple sprints and iterations, but these should come
once the processes are live and you are learning from them. Process documentation and data
mapping at the beginning of your journey can help to ensure that the gap between
development and deployment is much smaller because you don’t come across as many issues
during testing.
“You also need to look at the data points – is there the opportunity for those data points to
be streamlined?,” Tan advised. “So during that first discovery stage we thought ‘let’s just
automate’, but we had to go through lots of iterations because it was not giving us what we
wanted. Now we make sure we document the processes in terms of what we want to achieve,
and that reduces a lot of the testing issues and helps the business go-live.”
