Unilever and Emerging Economies

ECONOMIST— When a consumer-goods company casts around for the best growth prospects, rarely does anything look more promising than emerging economies. These markets are growing so rapidly that within just two years they will account for half of all the world’s consumer spending, estimates Harish Manwani, head of the Asian and African businesses of Unilever, a giant of the world’s consumer-goods industries. But even with more than a century of experience in some of these countries, Unilever tripped up.

Few companies have had the head start in places like Africa, China, India and Latin America that Unilever enjoyed. Yet despite the Anglo-Dutch giant’s formidable range of products and unprecedented depth of local knowledge, when rivals began to push harder its empire came under threat. Unilever was forced to re-examine its legacy and to act on what it found. Now the results are coming through. Read article.