AVON Case Study Avon Inc., a 115-year-old company, which manufactures and markets beauty and beauty related products, is known to have built its success globally through direct sales. In fact, Avon's strength has always been the "Avon lady," a nation wide force of women sales representatives trained in the art of customer relationship building. Recently, however, Avon's sales have seen a dramatic drop that has largely been attributed to the company's failure to keep pace with the Internet revolution. Indeed, the realization that the World Wide Web has redefined direct selling has led the company into formulating plans to harness the power of the Internet to improve its sales, customer relationships, and operational efficiencies.

It is widely recognized that the Internet has the power to substantially increase a company's market reach and supply chain efficiencies. In fact, in a day and age when online services and shopping are proving a boon to working women, it appears that Avon's continued dependence on its...

As such, the facts indicate that the company has missed the Internet revolution and is now attempting to catch-up. Indeed, this is evident in its plans to bring in the Internet as a support sales channel, and develop a worldwide intranet and extranet. The challenge that Avon faces, though, is to develop an Internet strategy that does not undermine the strength of the "Avon lady" as the ultimate channel for personalized customer attention and relationship building.
Avon's need is to ensure that it maintains the support of its 3 million strong sales force globally, while motivating them into harnessing the potential of the Internet to drive sales and customer relationships. This means that Avon's Internet strategy must work in tandem with the efforts of its sales representatives. Therefore, Avon's offer to assist sales representatives in creating their own Web sites to showcase Avon's offerings and generate sales makes imminent sense. Further, Avon's own…