Amway's Indian Network Marketing Experience
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Details
Themes : Direct Marketing
Period : 1994-2000
Organization : Amway Indian, Eureka Forbes
Pub Date : 2001
Countries : India
Industry : Business Services & Equipment
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Case Code : MKTG003
Case Length : 9 Pages
Price: Rs. 300;
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Making of the Dream Contd...
A significant portion of Amway's investment was on transferring state-of-the-art technology and processes to third-party manufacturers from the small and medium-scale sectors for the indigenous production of its product range. Amway assisted its three manufacturing partners, the ISO 9001-certified Jejuplast at Pune, Naisa Industries at Daman, and the Hyderabad-based Sarvotham Care, to achieve benchmarking levels of product development, engineering and quality.
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These facilities were equipped with advanced machinery and world class technologies for production, packaging, and water filtration. Amway scientists and engineers at the India Technical Centre provided assistance in the processes of technology transfer and quality control. The company supported its independent distributors with five full service ADCs at New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Calcutta and Mumbai. |
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In the beginning, Amway had to deal with the negative attitude of many Indians to direct selling. Direct selling was typically seen as unwelcome, an intrusion into one's privacy. This was true to a certain extent. Sales people often used a 'hardsell', the product quality was sometimes poor and most importantly, the salespeople were poorly trained and lacking in motivation.
However, Amway changed all this radically and a significant change was brought in the field. Amway was able to break the time tested and traditional distribution set-up of manufacturer-distributor-retailer-consumer. Within 11 months, Amway became the country's largest direct selling company and after two years of the commercial launch, Amway's distributor base crossed the 200,000 mark.
Its strengths were clearly manifested in the aggressive product launch plans, its products which claimed to exceed consumer expectations, the 'money back' policy, and a distribution network spread across 26 cities servicing more than 306 locations. In 1999, Amway reported a sales figure of Rs 100 crore. Reacting to reports stating this as a 'below-expectations' figure, company sources commented that the concept of network marketing had not been a constraint for Amway. The then CEO & MD Bill Pinckney commented, "The direct selling model is not new to India.
What's new is the structure. And while it's true that consumers do not rush in to buy an Amway product, network marketing works as a low-key approach and evolves over time." However, the problems like distributor attrition, a false 'premium' image and customer dissatisfaction soon began surfacing. Amway could not sit back and let competitors like Oriflame, Avon and Modicare take advantage of its weaknesses.