INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL OF UNILEVER

Intellectual Capital:

Unilever consider knowledge as their most valuable and strategic asset, it is crucial to effectively manage their intellectual resources and capabilities. Unilever integrate technology and organizational initiatives for managing and supporting knowledge processes. Unilever by using its superior intellectual resources understands how to exploit and develop their traditional resources better than competitors. 

In its highly competitive environment organizations clearly require a creative, motivated workforce which is intellectually professional and which contributes to the strategy of increasing value in aggressively changing environmental conditions.  Since Unilever has such specialized knowledge and produce high-quality intellectual output. Unilever use its intellectual capital to maintain its competitive advantage in the following way:

• ·         Its focus on R&D
• ·         Building the employees skills through training programs
• ·         Encouraging the innovations by its employees
• ·         Valuing the skills of its employees
• ·         Strong leadership to direct goals and motivate to achieve the goals of the organization
• ·         It encourages the knowledge transfer so that tacit knowledge also positively affects the organization
• ·         Encouraging its human capital to share knowledge
• ·         Building employees skills
• ·         Giving them feeling of affiliation and recognition by rewarding their efforts and work
• ·         Skilled decision making employees
• ·         It use its external environment information to make the strategies to compete in the market
• ·         It creates its environment to value the intellectual capital
• ·         Highly educated, experienced and skilled workers
• ·         Managers work in teams and encourage information sharing
• ·         Retrieving information is important and organization supports the sharing of ideas and information
• ·         Using the experience of its employees and rewarding them it retain its intellectual capital
• ·         The information needed to compete in the market is carefully analyzed and sound decisions and strategies are made
• ·         It is its intellectual capital that make it progress and promote its products through effective marketing
• ·         Its intellectual capital focus on sales promotion and come up with ways that are innovative
• ·         Its intellectual capital provides it competitive edge by product differentiation and diversification
• ·         It is because of its intellectual capital (experienced employees, skilled and knowledgeable workers and their deep insight about market conditions and opportunities) that it is operating in all the continents and more than 90 countries of the world.
• ·         Its intellectual capital helps it overcome its threats and weaknesses and enjoy its opportunities and strengths.

·         This intellectual capital of Unilever is its biggest strength.

 

It is the intellectual capital that give an organization its competitive advantage and to maintain its competitive advantage as well. If the employees experiences, skills, knowledge and expertise are valued and encouraged it help an organization maintain its competitive edge, make it efficient, increase its profitability and help rule the market. If the employees of the organization are rewarded, paid better for their work and feel the affiliation that is needed it not only help builds its competitive edge but the intellectual capital of the organization also remains with the organization.

Intellectual capital of Unilever is really taken care of because it is the reason behind that it is leading the market for past many years. It is its intellectual capital that beats its competitors and helps it to remain the market leader. Unilever rewards its employees and build their skills by arranging training programs, on the job trainings and different courses. It also recruits newly graduated employees to have the current knowledge and fresh ideas. It gives them a chance to implement their knowledge and experience actual world of competition. The ability of Unilever to retain, recruit and encourage its intellectual capital makes it enjoy the competitive advantage. The product differentiation, product diversification and effective marketing are all because of its intellectual capital and by valuing its intellectual capital it maintain this competitive advantage.