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Question: Write an essay on Avon. Answer: Avon is a popular company in women cosmetics industry. It operates in numerous countries across the globe. It is the largest direct seller of the beauty products. The main vision of the company is to manage the diverse workforce and expand its operation outside United States of America that is to India and China. They have tactfully shaped their business and the company also has a unique brand name in the global market. The business models they use are progressing each day. They are capturing the market at a fast rate. The distances between countries have minimized (Gray 2013). Most of the businesses are taking advantages of the market. International market is now not a distant dream. The gap between the countries has shrunk. The companies like Avon are taking the advantage of the situations. Human resource management is the department where recruitment and selection process is handled. It has perceived by many as the key zone of a business enterprise. In Avon, the workforce is huge. It is directed at ladies cosmetics. There are some thousands women are employed in Avon. They recruit female executives to handle the products (Entrekin and Scott-Ladd 2013). The human resource department plays an essential role in the organization. The Human Resource strategies have helped the organization attain success. The human resource department in the organization includes bit traditional and modern methods. The responsibility of the human resource department is not only to hire and select the employee and provide proper training and development. The human resource department is also expected to deliver the right number of individuals who are expected to assist the organization in reducing uncertainty even in unpredictable labor market. The main features of the human resource management are workforce management, personnel management, industrial management and organizational management (Taticchi 2013). Avon gives great emphasis on women empowerment. They are operating in several philanthropic businesses. They are giving a share of their profit to women education and health. Like many enterprises, Avon also has many strength areas to manage its employees effectively. Avon uses many strategies to hire and select the best employees for the benefit of the company. Avon runs leadership program and on-the-job training seminar on a regular basis.It also aims at maintaining the workforce diversity and minority recruitment (Entrekin and Scott-Ladd 2013). Development of global management cadre With the development of globalization the business organizations not only confine in expanding the business to domestic countries but they expand to international market as well. Avon not only targets at selling their product in the Indian market but also aims at expanding its business globally. For the expansion of the business it is essential for the organization to adapt a successful and well development human resource management practices. Companies should hire professional sales persons to compete in the international market. International market is a challenging area where there are barriers to overcome. Avon should acquire the service of local employees so that they can enter the region of their choice. The understanding of market environment is needed to overcome the barriers. Avon has hired millions of door-to-door representatives for entering every domestic household. It has helped them to increase their international market. They have managed to capture huge share in Chine se and Indian market (Johnston and Marshall 2013). Avons strategic human resource department helps the company attain success. The company also faces many challenges due to demographical and social shifts in United States. In order to survive in the globalized it is essential for the company to develop a strategic plan that focuses on development of its supply chain. The development plan should not only be used for the internal development but it is essential for the managers of the organization to consider the supply chain management. With the expansion happening in the global market International Human Resource Management will be needed to help facilitate the changes and new hires that come in from the home country to help make the business model run smoothly (Cavusgil et al. 2014). Avon is the largest direct seller the beauty products. The company has been successful in marinating its unique position in the global marketplace. The company aims at expanding its branches across the globe. It mainly targets at the young and the middle age crowd to sell its products. It is a well established brand in terms of beauty products and toiletries. The main credit for the success of the company goes to the female CEO of the company. To maintain a unique position in the global world it is essential for the firm to maintain its human resource efficiently. In a global world the companys workforce and sales people are the main representatives taking orders and dealing with the customers on a daily basis in consumer and industrial market. It is essential for the organization to train the workforce in order to develop a productive sales force (Gray 2013). It is essential for Avon to maintain the global workforce as it is the company that employs four million independent representatives across the globe. For creating a unique position it is essential for the firm to train and maintain a global and a diverse workforce. The companys compensation structure is commendable. It ensures that the company is able to maintain a standard environment for the workforce and should concentrate on the professional development of the firms diverse workforce. Avons five principles and values include trust, respect, belief, humility and integrity (Jones 2014). Recruitment and Selection The human resource department is the most essential part of the organization as the main responsibility of the department is hiring the right employees for the right job. The responsibility of human resource is also to train and develop the best employees of the company to achieve the goals of the company. Avon is a global company that has a dedicated human resource team that aims at recruiting and maintaining the best employees to achieve the goals of the firms. Qualities like culture empathy, workforce valuing, interpersonal skills and communication skills are needed to be a good human resource manager. A human resource manager should know how to extract the best out of any worker. Crucial characteristics like self-motivation, maintaining ethical standard, relationship buildup and organizing skills are observed in a human resource manager. The strategies facilitate full potential to recruit in Avon (Cornish et al. 2015). The company can use it leadership skills and motivational ski lls to hire and retain the best workforce in India and China. Having a female boss as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) has also helped the company to hire the best female employees as it helps in better understanding the needs of female customers than the male counterparts. Andrea Jung is their CEO. Before she joined Avon, the company was struggling to keep pace with their competitors. They were facing low revenues and high debts. Andrea Jung took charge and she implemented several strategies in both US offices and foreign offices. It helped to boost the market share and minimize their debts. They are now targeting new and upcoming markets of China and India (Valenti and Horner 2013). In addition to workforce diversity and minority recruitment, the company supports women empowerment programs (Daniels and Ganitsky 2014). A good leadership program also helps in recruiting the best employees of the company. The managers and leaders motivate the common people to join the company. They run programs on the job training, seminars on a regular basis. Knowledge and the ability to influence and inspire the followers is strength of them. These programs sharpen the knowledge and skills of the people. The initiatives give strength to the weakness areas and provide accountability and clear vision (Fallah 2013). Cross Cultural training and practices Cross - cultural communication model has become strategically important to the companies. It gives emphasis on growth of global business. The emergence of technology and science has done magic for every company. Understanding Cross-cultural communication is important for the company that have diverse workforce. Avon plans to conduct multicultural events that can cater to various regions. The knowledge of culture and language is important for an international business company (Prasad 2015). Employees from different background and culture coordinate at organization to meet the goals of the company. It is essential for the human resource department to develop a plan in order to provide cross cultural training and practices of the employees that come from different background. The demand for the cross cultural training is increasing in the organizations due to the risk that the company is facing because of the differences in the culture of the employees. The main aim is to increase the c ultural diversity at workplace. Avon Company also aims at managing the workforce that come from different background and culture. Cross cultural training is an educative process that focuses on promoting intellectual learning through effective competencies. It helps in effective interactions of people across diverse cultures. Cross culture is the interaction of people from different background at the workplace. The main issue of cross culture arises in the international business where the trade depends on the interaction of employees from different cultures, countries and regions (Moran et al. 2014). Cross cultural training helps in effective communication. It also helps in understanding the values of an individual through proper self assessment and training. It also helps in building intercultural competence that is essential in international business. Cross cultural training helps in developing awareness between people where a common cultural framework does not exist. It also helps the people to learn about themselves. Cross cultural training also helps in promoting self confidence empowering them with a sense of self control. It also helps in motivating employees and builds a trust among employees at workplace. Cross cultural training and practices also helps in breaking the cultural barriers through proper learning and knowledge. The employees are able to develop interpersonal skills and listening skills that helps in self development that can be used for then benefit of the company (Ting-Toomey et al. 2012). Dealing with culturally diverse workforces Seventy percent of the companys revenues are generated outside the United States of America. The major contributors are India and China. The author selects two cultural dimensions from the globe study to explain its illustration (De Mooij 2013). Since the company wants to expand its business to china and India it is essential for the organization to analyze the cultural factors that exist in the country and how it differs from that of United States of America. Since the marketing and business strategies of the firms depends on the background and culture of the country in which it is operating the organization should compare the contrasts in the cultural backgrounds of the country (Prasad 2015). Compare and contrast: Cross Cultural factors for China and India China and India relies up on innovations in many sectors. These two countries are seen as the future super powers. Their economic boom is attracting the global enterprises towards them. First is the role of government, in both of these countries the government gives preference to innovation. Avon is trying to enter the markets of these two nations. The china government has kept everything regulated in china. They have many laws that are strict and hinder the proliferation of innovation. To start something new needs lots of courage and determination. In contrast, the Indian government promotes innovation by fostering start up businesses. The culture and traditions take a centre stage in both the countries. The communist government of china is different from the democratic government of India. The culture in India is however more open to change and new things. While Avon can get good infrastructure in China, India lacks miles behind in this section (Moran et al. 2014). The transportation system in China is more developed and in India, the domestic supplies rely on railway system. The in-road trips are more expensive and time consuming. Shanghai is one of the most developed cities in the World. On the other hand, Indian cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore still have a lot to do in terms of building world-class facilities. The corruption is another area of concern in India. While in China, the government takes stern steps for protecting the country from any type of corruption. India still tries to keep their tradition and culture intact while simultaneously being exposed to western culture. This is a positive point in India that Avon must try to capture. The openness of Indians helped Avon to enter the subcontinent (De Mooij 2013). The general cultural differences of India and China with United States of America Compared to countries like China, India is not having enough quality infrastructure and labor output. In this area, India is way behind United States even from China. On the other hand, US have good legal laws. It is very necessary for international investment and in zones. The globalization has managed changes that are now irreversible in both states as the procedure continues to change. India is well positioned in the area. Chinese economy is considered stronger than India. The economic dependence of Chinese economy is ahead of India since last thirty years. They are consistently decoding several markets. Innovation can be seen as a factor. China and India relies up on innovations in many sectors (Moran et al. 2014). These two countries are seen as the future super powers. Their economic boom is attracting the global enterprises towards them. First is the role of government, in both of these countries the government gives preference to innovation. The export sections and their volu me is huge compare to India. A country like India depends more on imports more than export. On the other hand, America has adopted a complete turnaround on World Trade Organization (WTO) issue. They took more interest on securing Chinese rapport against terrorism issues at the last APEC summit in China this month. United States could not harp on its continual promotion of human rights theories (Yang et al. 2013). It can be said that the policy of decision-making process is much more complex in India as compared to China. The globalization has managed changes that are now irreversible in both states as the procedure continues to change. On the subject of democracy, India is well anchored in the area. Chinese economy is considered stronger than India. The economic dependence of Chinese economy is ahead of India since last thirty years. On the other hand, the recession has hit hard the United States firms. They previously relied on European nations for business. Nevertheless, the slowdown of economy in euro zone has made United States to change their global policy. Currently United States are shifting their view towards the alternative markets of Asia and Middle East. The booming market of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, China and India has attracted the investors from United States region. The objective of the China government was to inject life in the economy. China similarly has been extract ed from overseas China networks of enterprise (Cooke et al. 2014). Two cultural dimensions from the GLOBE study GLOBE project is a long-term programme designed for making a concept, operation, and testing and validate. A cross cultural program theory of the human relation between culture and society is there to examine. The organizational leadership should be directed to enhance the organizational leadership (Chhokar et al. 2013).GLOBE empirically established nine cultural dimensions that make it possible to capture the similarities or differences in norms, values, beliefs and practices among societies. The case analyzes the case of AVON and compares it with India and China to understand the differences in the cultural dimensions of the two countries. Power Distance: the degree to which members of collective group expect power to be distributed equally is the power distance cultural dimension of the project. The power distance specifies the all people are equal in society. The power distance is measured as 40 units in USA while it is 80 units in China. This suggests that people in USA has some form of discrimination while people at China considers everyone equal at society. It is an essential factor as it greatly affects the leadership and motivation of employees. Discrimination benefits only the leaders in the society. People work at more harmony and peace on China than USA due to presence absence of inequality at USA. Uncertainty Avoidance: The extent to which a society, organization, or group relies on social norms, rules, and procedures to alleviate unpredictability of future events. People at USA are more likely to take risk than that of China as the data suggests. US scores below the average score. As a consequence, the perceived context in which Americans find themselves will impact their behavior more than if the culture would have either scored higher or lower (Source: Mason 2014). Implication of cross cultural differences on communication and leadership The interpersonal control is a communicational strategy that influences the role relationship of the interacting individuals. The interpersonal strategies are singled out as a medium to try to keep the other person in either group work or in individual work. CAT theorists have articulated few explicit operations of interpersonal skills. CAT model writes on social identification theory to propose the people often converge to signal that they belong to a same society group. Intercultural communication in the workplace is highly influenced by intergroup processes. The time when social identity dominates the intergroup behaviour occurs. The interaction took place in the context of an inter-group orientation. It gives a space to fulfil an identity function. The individual characteristics of communicators have relied on social groups and their memberships, such as cultural background or status (Freedman 2014). The culture can be pointed out as having a bearing on the way organizations operate. Culture is defined as a set of historical contexts involvement. The aim of the company was to recognize that attitudes are appropriately used on both micro and macro level. The macro level commitments are not only an area to change by legal changes in the government. It also shares economic legislations at socio-cultural and economy level with other states within the kind of associations. Cultural differences have great impact on leadership and motivation. Cultural differences can interfere with the successful completion of projects in todays multicultural global business community (Valenti and Horner 2013). Future expansion Avon's fashion-line product range is involved in the manufacture and distribution of the company's non-beauty product line such as fashion ornaments, watches, apparel, footwear and other materials. Their products are especially made for the use of ladies. The products have caused a fan base in China and India. The females in these two countries like the Avon beauty products like anything. They are also joining the business as customer service professionals or sales executives. Some of the women are keeping the Avon products as part of Franchise business. Avon has started a trend in these two countries. Avon introduces gift and attractive products, house wares, entertainment and leisure items, and children's and nutritional products through its home category products (Jones 2014). Adding to these, the company also produces health and wellness products it is helping to keep a healthy lifestyle. The lack of strategic focus has affected the company's non-core business fashion and home pr oduct lines. Avons fashion and home product line registered a decline of 5% and 1.3% respectively as compared to the previous year (Kumar 2014). Mark, launched new digital social selling application that is connected the shoppers with Representatives on Facebook for the first time. Avons Mark is the only organization presently to have a social selling element that connects shoppers on Facebook. The increasing popularity of beauty contests and increasing disposable incomes have captured the emerging markets in countries like India, China, Bangladesh, Brazil and Korea. The markets here are coming as more essential to beauty product companies like Avon. In China, Avon Products was permitted a contracted selling license by Chinese Ministry of Commerce in 2006 (Avon.uk.com. 2016). The company has entered the operations in China since then becoming the second largest cosmetics market in Asia after Japan. The main country that Avon is planning to expand is India and China. Role of women in society in India and China Women play an important role in society. They are the main customers of the Avon Company as they invest major part of their income in purchasing beauty products. Avon is a company that caters to women. Therefore, they needed to be run by a female boss. Having a female boss as CEO has helped them to match enormous success of any other successful company. She can better understand the needs of female customers than her male counterpart can. It has helped Avon to implement and execute the plans successfully. Andrea Jung is their CEO. Before she joined Avon, the company was struggling to keep pace with their competitors. They were facing low revenues and high debts. Andrea Jung took charge and she implemented several strategies in both US offices and foreign offices. It helped to boost the market share and minimize their debts. They are now targeting new and upcoming markets of China and India (Jones 2014). Women play a great role in Avon. In fact Avon is considered to be the first movers in the workforce diversity and minority recruitment in the United States and over eighty six percent of management positions in the company are held by women. The main vision of statement of the company is that it is essential to satisfy and understand women before supplying them products and for this it is essential to hire as much employees it can in its organization. The company is involved in hiring large part of women members in its firm. Fifty percent of the companys board of directors is females. The maximum representatives of the women of the company in the global and imternational women are women and females. It is role model in providing employment opportunities to female representatives. The company is also involved in generously providing funds for cancer research, education, career development and other charitable program (Ghemawat 2013). Since Avon wants to expand its business in India and China it is essential for Avon to target the women section of society as they are the main purchasers of the cosmet8cs and beauty products that Avon provides. 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