Hindustan Unilever, a fast-moving consumer good (FMCG) giant, is drawing its focus on e-commerce, with consumer preferences constantly changing in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic. They view the focus on modern channels and e-commerce as “channels of future”, besides quickening premiumization of its portfolio. The company thought of giving importance to this move taking into consideration the constantly changing consumer preferences by the pandemic hit.
HUL is progressing to adapt to the trends by driving in the technology across its end-to-end value chain to build a business, which is going to be a fit in the near future. The upcoming technology advancements are changing the equations of the whole sales process.
HUL Chairman and Managing Director Sanjiv Mehta declared in his statement to shareholders on the company’s annual report for 2019-20 that, “We continue our journey of growth in modern trade and e-commerce, the channels of the future. We are using e-Commerce channel to drive the new benefit fragments and new procedures. We are focusing on building an online presence on the e-Commerce platforms with victory point of sale communication”.
Further to the statement, he added, consumer preferences are “constantly changing”, and HUL is grasping the “rapidly growing channel of e-commerce by making all our brands available across different online platforms”. Also, playing a differentiated portfolio strategy systematized for this channel.
It has also created an online platform named, ‘Cleanipedia’ to help consumers with cleaning tips and housekeeping built from the years of experience of the company’s household brands such as Comfort, Sunlight, Vim, Active Wheel, Magic, Rin, Domex, and Surf Excel.
HUL is also making efforts to look at their data and technology to help build a chain of serving their products to the customers and consumers. They have termed this initiative as a “paradigm shift”. “We are picking up consumer signals real-time through the People Data Centre, which analyses consumer sentiments and conversations about our brands and categories. We are driving precision marketing to identify consumer needs and direct targeted content,” Sanjiv Mehta said.
The company is using its savings to invest in better products and in growth areas of the future and brands, which ultimately turns into increased margins.
