Chapter 12: Innovative

Innovation is at the heart of Unilever’s ambition to grow sustainability. All of new innovations at Unilever are based on key insight into what consumers want and need. They aim to develop new products that attractive to customers so they will keep choosing them again and again. The innovation process at Unilever goes through three main stages of R&D. The first stage is research. Unilever has six laboratories in the US, UK, Netherlands, India and China. These laboratories work on the science and technologies that can be applied to Unilever product development process. The research is aimed to bring together the best thinking and ideas from wherever they exist. The research is not only from the best scientific expertise from within Unilever, but they also work closely with universities and specialist companies. The second stage is development. In this stage, the product design teams take the breakthroughs in science and technology one step further, turning unique insights into the products that consumers need. Development and testing on the technology takes place until it fits the product description. The last stage of innovation is launching new product. The R&D Deploy teams draw on a deep understanding of local knowledge as they ready for a product to launch into a new market. They work closely with colleagues in marketing and supply chain to make sure the new product can be manufactured efficiently and meets the needs of consumers.