1. International Business Environments & Operations AVON CALLS ON FOREIGN MARKETS

2. Avon: A World Class Brand  Founded in 1886, Avon is one of the world’s largest manufacturers and marketers of beauty-related products.  Avon enters foreign markets via a combination of nationally responsive and globally standardized marketing strategies.  The company has its own sales operations in 66 countries and territories, and it distributes to another 44. More than 75 percent of its sales come from outside the U.S.

3. The Avon Way Avon seeks to develop a global image of being a company that supports women and their needs. Direct selling Standardized products that carry its global brand, but allows product lines and brand names to vary by country if needed. Each country operation sets its own prices to reflect local market conditions and strategic objectives. Applicability of global marketing operations:

4. The company utilizes its orientation with help of various universities in order to meet the need of the customers and offer them the world class products to achieve customer satisfaction. It cut back on the manufacturing, advertising, distribution and marketing costs through utilizing direct sales in order to provide the low price quality items to its consumers. Avon in involved in social marketing operations too as it supports women globally in various issues such as domestic violence and breast cancer

5. High growth opportunities less competition in foreign market Saturation tough competition low growth potential changing trends of beauty and cosmetic products in the U.S Dependency on foreign operations than on its home (U.S.) operations: Global market platform provide wider chances for it to improve and enter into the worlds market of cosmetics and beauty products. Raising prices and selling more products in Latin America, its largest market, helped the cosmetics seller Avon Products more than triple its first-quarter profit. More than 80 percent of Avon’s quarterly revenue came from outside the United States and Canada.more than triple its first-quarter profit

6. Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education The role of women is changing More women were entering the workforce full time. & partime Rising middle class populations in developing countries of boosting economies like china is also providing a huge customer base to Avon. These changing trends of world market are influencing the Avon’s worldwide operations and business in the global economy. Effect of socioeconomic and demographic changes:

7. Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education Impact of 2008 recession on Avon’s operations: Recession can badly affect the economy The global recession such as the one in 2008 might affect Avon's operations in various ways. Avon has number of products such as skin creams which are considered as essential for women. Recession would not affect sale of these essential products even in recession time as these products have become the necessities of the women’s lives. Even in times of declining economy people are going and buying the products But products which are not considered as essentials will lose sale during the bad economy. In this case sale would be decreased and will affect the revenue of the company

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9. Competitive advantages: Avon has many competitive advantages that which contribute in its success worldwide. well-recognized brands with a global visibility, its unique distribution strategies, quality and value products, wide range of product line, unique marketing campaigns promotions strategies where it uses various celebrities to endorse the products in different countries. Other companies might face difficulty to imitate the competitive advantages of Avon as its strategies are backed up by strong customer loyalty that is the strength of the Avon

10. Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education Avon’s way of doing business: Pros and Cons. Avon has many advantages of selling its products directly to the market such as it reduces various overheads costs like operation cost, store maintenance cost, employee management, advertisement costs, promotion costs etc. word of mouth acts as a promotion of Avon customers tend to be quite loyal to the Avon ladies they befriend. It has few disadvantages too like unavailability of the product most of time, products are returned by the customers due to difficulty of matching colors in the catalog with real product etc. Its products are still not available to a large portion of the world's women

11. Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education SWOT ANALYSIS

12. Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education Criteria of selection of new suppliers: Image and the credibility of the supplier, Cost structure of the supplier, conveyance, proximity to the market for easy Fast delivery, quality of the services etc. Avon is a globally recognized brand so the supplier should also have good image in the market The criteria for where to manufacture the products would be the labor cost, operation cost, potential for market growth, low taxes, easy transportation and low cost structures, good infrastructure etc.

13. Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education Challenges in in today's competitive environment: Globalization and technology advancements have changed the way of today’s businesses. Direct selling is has become a bit obsolete nowadays as most of the companies are moving towards online selling and e-commerce businesses. I believe on this point Avon is lacking. The changing demographics show that people are not entertaining to the direct sellers because of the lack of time and busy schedules. Customers of this modern era want the product whenever and wherever they require or need