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Avon

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1. Why was Avon restructuring its business in 1988? Did the changes make sense?

Avon was restructuring its business as a result of several factors. 1) Avon’s board concluded that Foster, Mediplex, and Retirement Inn of America would no longer grow at an attractive rate, therefore decided to shed the Health Care Group companies. 2) The recent results from the Beauty Group were encouraging, thus the Board decided to direct efforts and capital towards the Beauty Business. 3) As part of a transition away from the direct sales approach, the company made several acquisitions to expand into retail stores.

As for shedding the Health Care business, public health care reform was not favorable at the time. In 1986, a change in Medicare, the primary source of revenue for Avon’s Health Care business, cut charges for these companies. The Board anticipated that the business would not grow at an attractive rate and still show acceptable profits. Exhibit 2 shows that revenues and margins decreased significantly for this business. For instance, revenues and pre-tax earnings were $542M and $91M respectively in 1984 compared to $167M and $10M in 1987. Channeling efforts towards the beauty business made sense. The business recovered from 1985 to 1987 as shown in Exhibit 2. Moreover, pre-tax earnings as a percentage of sales were increasing during the same period. Finally, as for transitioning away from direct sales and investing in the retail channel, the change made sense since the demographic shift was starting to hurt Avon’s beauty business that traditionally relied on the direct sales approach.

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