How Alan Jope runs Unilever from his study

Alan Jope, boss of Unilever, a consumer-goods conglomerate that makes everything from Dove soap to Knorr soup, ordered the firm’s 60,000 office workers in all countries bar China to work from home. The 56-year-old Scot took a train to Edinburgh where he joined his family. Sitting in his study, he recently spoke to Schumpeter via an online video-chat that he uses to run a business empire. In a world gone awry, it all felt rather normal. Mr Jope, in his habitual casual garb, looked relaxed.

Listening to Mr Jope it becomes clear how many rules of business the pandemic has shattered. The impact on production, consumption and generation of profit is even greater than on office work. The nature of the top job, which he has held since January 2019, has changed, too. In the past the hallmark of a good boss was a strategic mind. The covid era is all about the here and now.

First, people. Unilever is trying to safeguard the physical and financial well-being of its 155,000-strong workforce. Besides sending office staff home, factories are operating in “Fort Knox mode” to prevent the spread of infection, he says. Sales teams are ordered to contact customers virtually. Unilever will maintain pay levels for up to three months for all who work for it either directly or, like cleaning and catering staff, through contractors.

As for consumers, his third priority, they have been forced to shop less in all. Moreover, the sheer scale of panic buying in some places in recent weeks has led Unilever to turn monthly sales forecasts into weekly ones. Consumption patterns are not uniform. America and Europe have witnessed shelves stripped, mostly in big supermarkets. In developing countries people flock to neighbourhood shops. Demand is shifting online just about everywhere, but internet shopping is “totally overwhelmed”.

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