Founded in 62, Mary Kay (marykay. com) has regarding 1 . 8 million consultants selling its cosmetics and fragrance in 34 countries. In 2008, the company had about $2. 4 billion in from suppliers sales. As a company which includes based it is reputation on personal contacts in door-to-door visits and home gatherings, one may well think that Mary Kay may not benefit from EC. Actually, the alternative is true. At the moment, more than 95 percent of Mary Kay’s independent salesmen place instructions via the internet.
The challenge
The cosmetic makeup products market is incredibly competitive, but it really is growing speedily, especially in producing countries.
Jane Kay is trying to cash in on this tendency. The My Kay business design enables rapid growth in to new marketplaces. By the early on 2000s, consultants found that more and more buyers wanted to make an online purchase. With a very long and global supply string and the have to manage practically 2 million consultants, it had been clear that automation was needed, yet Mary Kay’s existing computer was old and was missing web or e-commerce applications.
Therefore , a major overhaul of the information systems was needed. Finally, it became crystal clear that the emergence of interpersonal computing may possibly provide a fantastic opportunity for Internet marketing by the firm.
The Solution
Jane Kay’s THAT department is actually split into 3 divisions: web commerce, supply sequence, and back-office support. Because of pressure through the consultants, the restructuring centered on e-commerce.
You can actually goals and objectives were set based upon industry guidelines and this can determine what, how, and when the business is operated, and these likewise apply to EC initiatives. Mary Kay’s EC solution included the creation of an digital service desk that facilitates consultants in 30 countries in a standardised way. Mary Kay as well introduced a worldwide electronic placing your order system, referred to as Atlas, that enables the consultants tocommunicate with company warehouses. An intelligent info repository that dynamically keeps a logical model of the EC environment that may be accessed by simply Mary Kay IT personnel.
Mary Kay and its consultants are also producing extensive use of social computing. The following are a lot of representative instances of how Jane Kay uses social calculating:
The company content job beginning announcements upon several sites, including Bebo Jobs (jobs. myspace. com).
Movies and videotapes are available on YouTube (youtube. com) and movies. get. com.
Many blogs are available, both intended for and resistant to the company (e. g., marykayandrews. com/blog)
Sales and fixed price items are available for purchase on amazon.
Mary Kay provides a consultant locator for the Internet (marykay. com/locator).
Many of these developments happen to be supported by a comprehensive hardware and software facilities, including a wi-fi remote management system at the 760, 000 square-foot corporate hq, an extensive extensive area network, and a large data center. Some of the EC systems are used enterprise vast (e. g., service workplace, ticketing system for consultants for occasions, andservice asks for made by consultants). Others are functional (e. g., accounting, finance, promoting, and products on hand control). The business uses an intranet to get internal communications as well as a large number of other EC applications.
Furthermore to offering better support to consultants, the EC initiatives developed other benefits, such as higher efficiency, reduced costs and downtime, and improved assistance. In terms of recruiting, it empowered the company to deal with its quick growth without a substantial increase in staffing. The alterations also have allowed EC workers to focus on strategic tasks. Martha Kay discovered that the engineers and technical persons now have time to spend on fresh innovations.
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