AVON Calls on Foreign Markets Avon believed that having regionalized new product development centers, supply chain operations, marketing and sales divisions would make them more competitive in foreign markets. Ironically the exact opposite happened, as the case illustrates. Avon's performance was drastically reduced and the duplication of effort crippled the organization. Unfortunately the highly decentralized, market-driven organizational structure that Avon had such high expectations for failure to deliver the results needed

This strategy of investing face-time has continued to scale extremely well in the U.S., yet has faced many challenges in other nations that value data, hard numbers and strong methodologies to validate the claims of products. One nations' buyers of cosmetics in particular, the Japanese, are more focused on the specifics of the how a product is produced and want to know in great detail what the ingredients are

The company's founders and senior managers however feared this would make the company less agile and able to respond to market requirements (Grammenou, 2009). Demographic Analysis There have been many socioeconomic and demographic changes that have affected Avon's business model in the last two decades. The greatest socioeconomic force affecting them today is the need for many women to work full-time jobs to contribute to their household's income. This has drastically

Avon has both word-of-mouth and trust on its side as a provider of cosmetics, beauty and health aids. Their distribution strategy is one of the aspects that make their unique value proposition all the more effective as well, as it reinforces trust with face-time between their representatives and customers. The Avon model and competitive strength is all predicated on buying from someone you know and trust. Supply Chain Implications for

AVON -- Foreign Markets The marketing strategies that the reading assignment offers include Avon's style of selling -- which is direct sales door-to-door -- and the women who sell door-to-door actually go back to the home where they sold and deliver the products. Another strategy is to sell using the Internet (personal web pages), and selling to friends, colleagues and family (Chapter 16, p. 622). Also, using universities in China, Japan,

International Business The international company to be featured in this paper is Avon International. Avon is a cosmetics company located in about seventy-five countries in five geographical locations: Latin America, North America, Central, Eastern and Western Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific. In addition to cosmetics (fragrances, skin care, personal care and color cosmetics), Avon also produces fashion items (fashion jewelry, watches, apparel, footwear, accessories and children's products) and