Unilever Transforms Into Cloud-Only Enterprise

Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of beauty and well-being, personal care, home care, nutrition and ice cream products, with sales in 190-plus countries and products used by 3.4 billion people every day.

Accenture, Microsoft and Unilever have reportedly completed one of the largest and most complex cloud migrations in the consumer goods industry. The migration has helped Unilever become a cloud-only enterprise, helping to ensure secure and optimized operations.

Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of beauty and well-being, personal care, home care, nutrition and ice cream products, with sales in more than190 countries, and whose 400-plus brands are used by 3.4 billion people every day. The CPG company has 148,000 employees and generated sales of €60.1 billion (USD $65.5 billion) in 2022.

Accenture and Microsoft, together with their joint venture, Avanade, worked closely with Unilever to deliver its cloud transformation in just 18 months, with minimal disruption to business operations.

Using Azure as its primary cloud platform, Unilever will be able to accelerate product launches, enhance customer service and improve operational efficiency. Additionally, the move to Azure aligns with Unilever’s sustainability commitment by helping the company to build on the progress it’s making toward curbing carbon emissions.

With increased computing power, Unilever said that its adoption of a cloud-only approach will significantly improve business resilience, strengthening security and enhancing control of the IT landscape.

According to Accenture, Microsoft and Unilever, migrating to the cloud will:

Unlock innovation opportunities, such as using industrial metaverse technologies that use real-time data from factory digital twins to accelerate lighthouse factories of the future and build upon existing cloud data platform to power insights and predictions.
Accelerate the ability to identify trends and make decisions faster. By leveraging the power of the cloud, artificial intelligence (AI) and its strong data foundation, Unilever can forecast and adapt to changing market needs faster than ever before. For example, this will enable Unilever to achieve perpetual breakthroughs in research and development, allowing for new products to be developed faster.
Embrace the latest in AI to drive better experiences by applying Azure OpenAI Service across Unilever’s business to drive increased automation, enabling better customer and employee experiences.
Reduce Unilever’s carbon footprint by exiting its datacenters and introducing Green Cloud Advisor to allow for a more sustainable and efficient cloud environment.

“Unilever is a truly data-powered organization,” said Steve McCrystal, chief enterprise and technology officer of Unilever, whose U.S. headquarters is in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. “We’re using advanced analytics to make better-informed decisions quicker than ever before. Working with Accenture and Microsoft on this global transformation project, we can respond to ever-changing consumer needs faster, allocate our resources more effectively to focus on what drives growth, and bring services and products to the market faster.”

“With Microsoft Azure as its cloud foundation, Unilever’s end-to-end digitization will enable rapid innovation across its entire business,” added Judson Althoff, EVP and chief commercial officer at Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft. “From embracing the industrial metaverse across its factories to reimagining how its lines of business can do more with tools like Azure OpenAI Service, Unilever’s digital-first approach will empower it to grow resiliently and exceed the industry’s pace of innovation.”

“The path to business resilience now and in the future is through total enterprise reinvention — which involves the transformation of every part of the business — with cloud at the core,” noted Nicole van Det, senior managing director at Dublin-based Accenture and global account lead for Unilever. “With access to the full continuum of cloud capabilities, including generative AI, Unilever has the elasticity to drive innovation faster, accelerate growth, and continue to set the pace as a digital powerhouse and leader in its industry.”