The world’s second-largest consumer-goods company, Unilever employed Harish Manwani as the Chief Operating Officer for its units in Asia, Africa and central and Eastern Europe. Mr. Harish was going to take the charge on September 1, revealed the London- and Rotterdam-based company.

The company had taken this step in order to deal with the competition in the developing market. The company appointed Mr. Harish for the post because it wanted to focus on the product categories rather than geographical barriers. The new change was going to increase the speed in launch of the products in the market.

Unilever rose as much as 34 cents, or 1.5 percent, to 22.54 euro in Amsterdam trading, and was at 22.5 euro. The company had 2 billion customers globally and had established four new operating groups and named executives to supervise their respective units. Dave Lewis was appointed as the President of personal care unit, Kevin Havelock will run the refreshment category, Antoine de Saint Affrique will oversee food and Randy Quinn and Sean Gogarty will run the home care unit, reporting to Polman.

As per Mr. Harish, Asia and Africa contributed 40 percent of Unilever’s 44 billion euro ($63 billion) in sales previous year as the maker of Knorr seasonings, Dove soap and Surf detergent expanded in developing economies to offset constant sales in Europe and the U. S. More than 55 percent of Unilever’s business came from the rising market.