How Unilever and Amazon Ensure a Seamless Supply Chain

E-commerce remains central to Unilever’s growth strategy, with Amazon recognised as one of its most important partners in the online retail space.

Unilever has focused on ensuring its products are consistently available on Amazon’s platform, making it convenient for customers to find and purchase them.

Efforts to enhance the partnership between Unilever and Amazon include improving supply chain collaboration and streamlining operations to efficiently deliver Unilever products to Amazon fulfilment centres.

Mark Sumner, Global Digital Commerce Customer Supply Chain Director at Unilever, explains: "Maintaining strong relationships with retailers like Amazon, who built new technology-enabled business models to serve changing customer habits, is vital to ensure our brands are well presented to our consumers and available for purchase at all times."

Leveraging Kaizen for supply chain innovation

Unilever and Amazon are renowned for their robust supply chains. Both have been recognised as Supply Chain Masters by Gartner, a distinction awarded for excellence and sustained performance. However, succeeding in e-commerce requires a different approach from traditional retail.

Unlike brick-and-mortar stores, e-commerce demands larger and more varied stock quantities, rapid delivery and fully-digital operations. To address these challenges, Unilever adopted Kaizen, a Japanese methodology focused on continuous improvement. Initially developed for manufacturing, Kaizen involves rethinking established practices to drive progress.

Since 2022, Unilever and Amazon teams have collaborated in Kaizen workshops held worldwide, focusing on re-examining supply chain processes. By identifying inefficiencies and aligning on shared goals, the teams work to enhance operational integration and strengthen local partnerships.

“To date, we’ve carried out Kaizen workshops with Amazon in Australia, Brazil, Europe, Egypt, India and the US," continues Mark. "Through a series of very open, productive conversations and actions, we've improved 15 KPIs and solved over 100 pain points since we started this programme in July 2022."

In fact, the cold hard figures do most of the talking in regards to the impact of Kaizen. The 2022 Kaizen workshop in Australia reduced Unilever’s out-of-stock rate on Amazon by 40%, while a 2023 session in Egypt increased the order acceptance rate by 20%. Meanwhile, a 2024 initiative in India improved the order fill rate by 35% and cut delivery defects by 55%.

Future-proofing the e-commerce supply chain

Kaizen-driven collaborations have delivered tangible results for Unilever and Amazon. Improved supply chain processes lower costs for Unilever, enhance delivery speeds and ensure customers benefit from a reliable supply of brands, robust packaging and better stock availability.

Sumner highlights the broader impacts of the initiative: “Every Kaizen workshop and follow-up has had beneficial impacts – big and small. One major change was Unilever creating a new internal dashboard that allows us to share supply chain performance data across global Unilever teams. This has improved our demand planning and in-stock availability for Amazon customers and achieved greater alignment on our supply chain strategy."

Even smaller adjustments have proven valuable. For instance, Unilever altered shipping packaging for certain products, enabling Amazon to dispatch items directly without repacking. This simple change reduces handling time and enhances efficiency, contributing to a supply chain equipped to meet future demands.

“These results help deliver lower supply chain costs for Unilever, faster delivery speeds, a more customer-centric portfolio of brands, more robust packaging and higher in-stock rates, which improves the experience for Amazon customers,” concludes Sumner.

Through a commitment to innovation and collaboration, Unilever and Amazon demonstrate how partnerships and methodologies like Kaizen can transform supply chains to meet the evolving demands of e-commerce.

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