International Business

Marketing Orientations

Commonly, there are five marketing orientations followed by business units: production, sales, customer, strategic marketing, and social marketing. Avon's penetration into Canada was not inclined towards product orientation, yet its marketing scheme was targeted towards sales orientation in its first foreign market. Its initial experience with Canada was similar to that of United States market. The company demonstrated proclivity towards customer orientation by launching skin lightening creams in Asia and long-lasting citrus fragrances in the Mediterranean countries and customized their products to cater to varying customer tastes. This approach is primarily focused upon meeting the demands of the customer as per there demographic preferences, they are more reliant on country's values and employ those characteristics to satisfy the customer base. In China, Avon adopted an astute strategic marketing approach by shifting their focus from direct selling to making product available at every corner of the country (Gogoi, 2008). This was mainly due to Chinese laws that prohibited door to door sales. Avon's social marketing orientation is position to mount the company's reputation by supporting women causes, specifically in the benevolent fight against domestic violence and breast cancer.

Dependency on Foreign Operations

Avon realized the opportunity of catering to the wide untapped market for its cosmetics outside the boundaries of United States. The US market is highly competitive and sales growth was predicted to be low and no more untapped areas were present for Avon to penetrate in. Thus, Avon decided to direct their focus on less competitive market with great potential in other countries. Also, Avon's distribution system met failures as US women entered in the workforce full time (Daniels & Radebaugh, 1995). There prospects for foreign expansion were also supported by a fact that less than 5 percent of the world population reside in US and favorable tax base was another element influencing their inclination towards foreign markets.

Socioeconomic and Demographic Consideration

Socioeconomic, demographic, and cultural factors play a key role in the formulating penetration strategy in respect of foreign countries. These factors presents hallmark in company's decisions on where and how to do business internationally while keeping in view their negotiating morals and values, legal laws and intellectual property rights policies. Further, since Avon's products are targeted to women's market, cultural considerations and traditions play an important role; whether women work outside home, full time or part time. The company has to monitor the growing population of women in ...