CEO Alan Jope said that after the pandemic ecommerce would “clearly remain a key platform” and wants to further strengthen Unilever’s digital operations as customer behaviour is shifting. Unilever has credited investment in marketing and expansion to save overhead, and prepare it for key potential customer channels. Unilever CEO Alan Jope said e-commerce will obviously remain a key platform when he talks this morning about the company’s outcome 2021 Q1 results and continues with “important strategic choices” to lead in digital technology. “The pandemic has just speeded up the online transition and we won’t see this shift anytime soon. E-commerce growth again increased in the first quarter by 66 %, our B2B ecommerce channel doubled in size and the omnichannel in the first quarter grew strongly,” said Jope. Ecommerce now represents 11% of company turnover, up from 9% in the quarter. In February, Unilever’s digital and marketing officer Conny Braams announced that it was possible to get the digital market to the company quicker, when it came to e-commerce. At the end of its 2020 financial year, the brand promised to capitalise on the increase in ecommerce caused by the pandemic.
Unilever has invested substantially in upgrading its digital marketing hubs, which is growing from 39 to 46 in 40 countries to support the growth of e-commerce and other aspects of digital transformation. “Our success marketers, content managers and data governance experts are working with audiences, analytical professionals, activation specialists and online interaction leaders,” Jope said. The business has 29 digitally-enabled consumer interaction centres, which connect directly with 3 million consumers per year to handle the interest. “These are the capabilities we have developed and continue to construct to ensure that content is converted and executed flawlessly,” Jope added. Jope said between 2017 and today, overall costs decreased by 70 basis points when asked about how the data centre’s and marketing hubs impacted profits and losses. “We decided to spend a little in marketing and we will continue to do so. However, this is certainly an area in which we have an advantage in terms of the size of our results. We have Amazon Cloud’s second biggest data estate because of the enormous market and customer database we are creating,” Jope said.
“We are learning how to make value and we will continue to invest in Unilever’s digital transformation, but there will be no net increment as we save elsewhere.” The results for Q1 2021 show that the turnover of Unilever’s has fallen progressively by 0.9% to € 12.3 billion (£ 10.7 billion). “The match becomes suited for Unilever. Where we want to invest and expand, we’re transparent. We are continuing the path of operational excellence based on our five growth foundations,” said Jope.
