E-commerce for Unilever Food Solutions 1. Executive Summary

This project recommends the creation of an e-commerce platform for Unilever Food Solutions. It was completely developed and proposed by me when I was doing an internship at Unilever. After realizing that an e-commerce platform would not fit on most of Unilever’s areas of business, due to their business model focused on retail, I turned to UFS and concluded that their business could use an e-commerce platform to bring it closer to final consumers and provide more information on the food service market and it’s operator’s preferences. Also, it would enable the company to increase it’s profits by decreasing overhead and operating costs and by creating savings in UFS’s relation with it’s partners. The proposed business plan gives a detailed explanation of the venture, along with expected needs and risks taking into account the unique nature of electronic commerce. The business plan outlines how the company can take advantage of e-commerce to allow it to gain greater efficiency in management, marketing, sales, and other business processes. Feedback from the company was positive towards this project, as it was approved by UFS’s national sales director Fernando Castanheira, who provided me with the information I needed throughout the process and enabled me to contact the necessary entities to deliver the project. It is expected that I will present the project to UFS’s managing director Carla de Sousa Pereira.