Unilever Delivers Unmissably Superior Products through Quality Management Transformation
At Unilever, quality is more than a compliance requirement — it is a cornerstone of our growth strategy. Our goal is to deliver best-in-class performance with market-leading, unmissably superior brands. Whether it’s household staples like Dove or innovative offerings like Liquid I.V., every product must meet the highest safety and quality standards.
With over 3.4 billion consumers using our products daily across more than 190 countries, ensuring consistent, high-quality products at scale is a formidable challenge. Managing quality across an expansive global network of suppliers, collaborative manufacturers, and factories required a fundamental transformation. To address this, Unilever’s Global Quality team embarked on a bold digital initiative, redefining quality management from a compliance-driven function to a strategic advantage powered by technology. At the heart of this transformation is Veeva Quality Cloud, a digital platform that integrates IT systems, automates processes, and serves as the foundation for AI-powered predictive quality operations.
By modernizing our approach, we are not only improving efficiency — we are making quality a competitive advantage that drives innovation and growth.
The need for change
Maintaining unmissably superior product quality across Unilever’s vast and dynamic value chain required a fundamental shift. Legacy systems, siloed data, and manual processes created critical challenges:
- Limited Visibility – Quality data was scattered across multiple platforms, making it time-consuming to track key metrics, assess risks, and monitor operational performance. This led to delays and compliance risks.
- Slow Decision-Making – Manual, paper-based workflows slowed product releases and quality incident investigations, creating supply chain bottlenecks.
- Collaboration Barriers – Regional variations in quality procedures and disparate IT systems hindered cross-functional collaboration, reducing agility and responsiveness.
- Operational Inefficiencies – Teams spent significant time managing quality documents, tracking data in spreadsheets, and compiling reports, leading to inefficiencies.
Incremental improvements were not enough. To stay ahead in a fast-moving, consumer-driven market, we needed a digital-first, enterprise-wide transformation that would make quality proactive, data-driven, and scalable.
A digital-first approach to quality management
Our vision for quality transformation took shape through a strategic partnership with Veeva Systems and the deployment of Veeva Quality Cloud, a unified solution consolidating quality documents, data, processes, and people onto a single platform.
1. Unifying IT Systems for End-to-End Visibility
We replaced more than ten fragmented legacy systems with a single cloud-based solution, providing real-time transparency across the entire value chain. With over 22,000 users, including external partners, we have achieved:
- Improved collaboration between internal teams, suppliers, and contract manufacturers.
- Increased operational efficiency, reducing complexity and IT maintenance costs.
- Standardized quality processes across all regions and manufacturing sites.
2. Automating and Streamlining Core Quality Processes
By digitizing and automating 16 key quality workflows — including document management, non-conformances, CAPA, audits, supplier quality, and risk management — we have realized:
- A 40% reduction in manual effort, driving significant operational efficiencies.
- Faster issue resolution, reducing cycle times in quality management.
- Enhanced compliance and traceability, ensuring better governance and regulatory adherence.
3. Driving Proactive Continuous Improvement
By integrating AI-powered analytics, we are transforming quality from reactive to proactive:
- A 30% reduction in quality incidents through better data-driven continuous improvement.
- Faster root cause analysis, enabled by real-time monitoring and automated alerts.
- Stronger supplier risk management with data-driven audits and material inspection plans, mitigating raw material issues before they impact production.
These advancements have not only improved efficiency but also enhanced product quality and consumer trust, positioning Unilever as a leader in quality digital transformation.
Looking ahead: AI-powered predictive quality
With a strong digital foundation in place, our next step is to harness AI for predictive quality management. By leveraging real-time data across the supply chain, we are shifting from reactive problem-solving to proactive and even prescriptive actions — enhancing efficiency, reducing costs, and ensuring the consistent delivery of unmissably superior products, every day and everywhere.
This transformation not only reinforces Unilever’s commitment to excellence but also cements our leadership in digital quality innovation. By redefining quality as a strategic advantage rather than a compliance requirement, we are setting new industry standards while ensuring every consumer experience is built on trust.
Ahmed Maklad is the Global Head of Quality Digital Transformation at Unilever. Contact him on LinkedIn.
