Avon - Case Analysis
Avon
As of November 1999, Avon was experiencing economic troubles. Avon's growth rate of annual sales was less than 1.5 percent during the greatest economic boom in history. This prompted a transfer in leadership which appointed Andrea Jung as CEO. Since that time, Avon has experienced remarkable growth.
Under the direction of the new CEO, a new strategy was developed to reinvent Avon's image, improve customer satisfaction, and to increase profit margins and market share. Avon has gained an outstanding reputation as the best direct seller of beauty products. Through the continued efforts and achievements of its sales representatives, Avon is now known worldwide. Avon's core competence has mainly been its direct selling busniess model. This led Jung and the management team to implement a Sales Leadership program that provided incentives to acquire, train, motivate, and retain the number of active sales representatives it needs to sustain significant growth. Avon also has a representative development program that focuses on the professional training of representatives. This enables the representatives to provide valuable information on Avon brand products. Avon also keeps its superior customer service in other ways of distribution such as the Internet and in the department store sales by having a timely and correct order delivery, one on one information exchange and personalized professional advice.
Forces of Competition
Rivalry among competing sellers in the CFT industry is strong. The creation of innovative products is crucial to success. This industry focuses on continually developing cutting edge products using the latest science and technology. Rivalry is stronger when customer's costs to switch brands are low. Switching costs in the CFT industry are very low, due to the large amount of different brands of similar products. This cost is due to the higher number of competitors in the CFT industry and...
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