Renewing Unilever: Transformation and Tradition by Geoffrey Jones

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Synopsis

Unilever's brands can now be found in one out of every two households in the world. This arresting and impressive fact shows the scope and scale of this unique global corporation. Geoffrey Jones, a leading business historian from the Harvard Business School takes us inside this corporation, which from it's origins in Britain and the Netherlands, has become a worldwide manufacturer of fast moving consumer products. Unilever's operations cover food and home and personal care, and it's brands include Lipton Tea, Hellmann's Bird's Eye, Wall's, Ben and Jerry's, Surf, Domestos, Comfort, Dove, Sunsilk, Pond's, Signal, Axe and Calvin Klein. In particular the book focuses on the evolution of the company over the last half century. Managing such a firm in the era of globalization posed enormous challenges. The book covers the company's strategies and provides compelling evidence of its decision-making, marketing, brand management, innovation, acquisition strategies, corporate culture and human resource management. The author has had full access to corporate archives and executives and provides us with a unique insight into the workings and strategies of one of the world's oldest and largest multinationals.

Biography

Geoffrey Jones is Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School. He previously taught at the universities of Cambridge and Reading, and at the London School of Economics, in the U.K. He is the author and editor of many books and articles on the history of international business, including British Multinational Banking 1830-1990 (OUP, 1993), Merchants to Multinationals (OUP, 2000), and Multinationals and Global Capitalism (OUP, 2005). He is a former President of both the European Business History Association and the Business History Conference of the United States, is co-editor of the journal Business History Review, and editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Business History.