Unilever 2006 Annual Report Download - page 9

6Unilever Annual Report and Accounts 2006
Report of the Directors (continued)
About Unilever (continued)
We sell our products in nearly all countries throughout the world
and manufacture in many of them. We export a wide range of
products to countries where we do not make them. For example,
inside the European Union we make many of our products in only
afew member countries, for sale in all of them. The chosen
manufacturing configuration is generally determined by an
optimised regional sourcing strategy which takes account of
requirements for innovation, quality, service, cost and flexibility.
Certain of our businesses, such as ice cream, are subject to
significant seasonal fluctuations in sales. However, Unilever
operates globally in many different markets and product
categories. No individual element of seasonality is likely to be
material to the results of the Group as a whole.
Related party transactions
Transactions with related parties are conducted in accordance
with agreed transfer pricing policies and include sales to joint
ventures and associates. Other than those disclosed in this report,
therewere no related party transactions that were material to the
Group or to the related parties concerned that are required to be
reported in 2006 or the two preceding years.
For more information about related party transactions please refer
also to note 30 on page 122.
Resources
Our brands – Foods
Our Foods category manages brands in two main groups:
Savoury, dressings and spreads includes sales of soups, bouillons,
sauces, snacks, mayonnaise, salad dressings, olive oil, margarines,
spreads and cooking products such as liquid margarines and the
remaining frozen foods businesses. Among the leading brands are
Knorr,Hellmann’s,Calvé,Wish-Bone,Amora,Bertolli,our healthy
heart Becel and Flora ranges, and our family brands including
Rama,Blue Band and Country Crock.
Ice cream and beverages includes our sales of ice cream under
the international Heart brand, including Cornetto,Magnum,
Carte d’Or and Solero,and also Ben & Jerry’s,Breyers,Klondike
and Popsicle. It also includes sales of tea, where our brands
include Lipton and Brooke Bond,weight management products,
principally Slim•Fast,and nutritionally enhanced staples sold in
developing markets, including our Annapurna and AdeS ranges.
Within these groups, our Unilever Foodsolutions business is a
global food service business providing solutions for professional
chefs and caterers. Its results are reported within those for the
groups above.
Our brands – Home and Personal Care
Our Home and Personal Carecategory manages brands in two
main groups:
In Personal Care, six global brands are the core of our business in
the deodorants, skin cleansing, daily hair care and mass-market
skin carecategories – Axe,Dove,Lux,Pond’s,Rexona and Sunsilk.
Other important brands include Suave,Clear,Lifebuoy and
Vaseline,together with Signal and Close Up in oral care.
Our Home Care ranges include a series of laundry products,
including tablets as well as traditional powders and liquids for
washing by hand or machine. Tailored products including soap
bars are available for lower-income consumers. Our brands
include Comfort,Omo,Radiant,Skip,Snuggle and Surf.Our
household care products are led by our Cif and Domestos brands.
Corporate venture activities
Unilever has allocated €350 million to its venturing activities in
order to create business opportunities that will help build our core
business interests in Foods and Home and Personal Care. These
activities include:
• Unilever Technology Ventures, which invests in technology
funds and start-up companies;
• Unilever Ventures, which is an early-stage business development
fund for businesses from both inside and outside Unilever; and
• Langholm Capital, which is an independent fund investing in
private European companies with above-average longer-term
growth prospects.
Our employees
Weset great store by our people. No matter what their level or
individual responsibilities, they all make an important contribution
to our success.
The following examples outline some of the initiatives we have
instigated to help our people develop their skills, broaden their
experience and – wherever they are in the world – improve their
chances of progressing within Unilever.
Talented people aregiven opportunities to develop at every level.
However, our new senior leadership programme, launched in
2006, is aimed at those with potential to reach the top roles. The
programme includes a bespoke business simulation, based on one
of our skincare businesses. It provides an exceptional opportunity
for senior managers rapidly to gain the breadth and depth of
business and leadership understanding required for our business’s
most demanding roles.
We are always looking at new ways of working to drive business
effectiveness. One example is in the area of business travel which
can be time-consuming and tiring. Our current videoconferencing
equipment is being upgraded to state-of-the-art facilities at five
major Unilever sites worldwide and is expected to enable us to
reduce travel. These facilities mean that complete teams can
communicate effectively with one another across continents
and time zones without anyone leaving the office – making
better use of everyone’s time and energy, and limiting time
spent away from home.
During 2006, as part of a graduate recruitment programme,
Unilever Netherlands set an unusual work-experience challenge.
Students spent two weeks in rural India on Hindustan Lever’s
Project Shakti, helping women in remote areas who have set up
small businesses as direct-to-consumer retailers and measuring
the project’s success. By providing local women with training and
business skills, Shakti creates a new distribution channel for our
products while providing the women with opportunities to
improve their income, standard of living and place in the
community. It also helped open Dutch students’ eyes to the wide
variety of activities that take place across the Unilever world.