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6 Unilever Annual Review 1998 Chairmen’s Statement
Morris Tabaksblat discusses Unilever’s
results, and the way forward for the
Company, at one of 11 Chairmen’s
presentations for staff
The way ahead
Economies around the world were delicately poised at the end of 1998.
It is unclear whether economies will grow faster in 1999 or slow down.
Nevertheless the improvement in our underlying profitability of recent
years is sustainable and we can reasonably expect further margin
improvement as restructuring benefits continue to flow. In Europe, the
launch of the Euro is now a fact. We believe it is an important step in
the development of the single market and will enhance competitiveness
to the benefit of Europe’s citizens. Many of the challenges and
opportunities we experienced in 1998 will continue to face us in 1999.
In 1998 we concentrated on building and enhancing market shares in
corporate categories and we are well placed to benefit from any
improvement in general trading conditions.
As we look towards the next decade we believe Unilever is well
focused on sustained value growth. Our ability to deliver outstanding
performance in the years ahead will depend on our success in
progressing a number of key priorities, through:
the portfolio rationalisation and the major restructuring work which
we started a few years ago
the drive to use the scale and scope of Unilever to deliver greater
value from the resources invested in supply chain, consumer
communications and customer management
building our capabilities in e:commerce, particularly in interactive
brand communications and knowledge management