Unilever Case Study

Groundbreaking In-Store Data Service Provides Unprecedented Visibility to Transform Shelf Management

Unilever utilizes Pensa Systems to improve On Shelf Availability and Share of Shelf to deliver a more Perfect Store.

Unilever

Unilever is a leading global company selling some of the world’s most recognized brands in personal care, cleaning, and food. One in three people in over 190 countries use a Unilever brand every day. Unilever is constantly striving to maximize sales growth and enhance its customers’ shopping experience by improving retail execution.

To achieve this, it pioneered the concept of the “Perfect Store” in the late 2000s, focusing on ensuring that every store has the ideal assortment of products, that those products are visible to shoppers, and that in-store tools, promotions, signage, etc., are executed flawlessly.

While Unilever leads the industry in using data and analytics to deliver the Perfect Store, real-time shelf visibility remains a challenge, impacting inventory management at Unilever's 25 million retail sales outlets. The inability to collect frequent and accurate data for product availability (On Shelf Availability, or OSA) or Share of Shelf (SOS) poses significant challenges in delivering on the Perfect Store promise.

Universal Challenge

The retail store shelf is critical for both consumer brands and retailers, yet today neither has an automated way to monitor store shelves for performance assessment. Planograms define shelf layout, but actual availability can vary due to compliance issues, stockouts, and misplacements.

These manual monitoring practices lead to inaccuracies, often delayed data processing, and a lack of real-time insights. As a result, brands and retailers miss out on $1 Trillion annually due to inventory challenges. Inventory data provides insights into what should be on the shelf, leading to a stockout problem that needs urgent attention.

Solution

Pensa's offering provides continuous visibility of the store shelf, delivering real-time reporting of OSA and SOS by day, SKU, and store. The cloud-based “automated perception system” employs advanced technology, including AI and visual data capture through autonomous drones and mobile devices.

This system identifies variations on the shelf, such as missing or misplaced products, addressing issues that can account for 30% - 40% of hidden stockouts.

Unilever Implementation

Unilever initiated a pilot project in Turkey in December 2019, focusing on hair care.

• Scanning: Pensa scanned shelves and captured data three times a day using mobile phones and drones,
• Analyzing: Data processed quickly, accurately recognizing shelf organization,
• Real-Time Reporting: Within one hour, detailed reports became available to monitor compliance and performance.

Results

Pensa's detailed data helped Unilever identify improvement opportunities, narrowing execution inconsistencies and optimizing OSA and SOS. By analyzing detailed metrics:

• Pensa captured daily OSA, revealing discrepancies during specific timeframes,
• Identified root causes, including a product transition causing stock-outs,
• Provided insights on competitive SOS, exposing areas for potential planogram corrections.

Impact

Through collaboration with Pensa, Unilever Turkey diagnosed opportunities to potentially increase competitive share-of-shelf by up to four percentage points and reduce stockouts by up to nine percentage points during critical shopping periods, translating into a potential four-and-a-half percent increase in revenue.