Mary Kay, Inc., sells facial skin care products and cosmetics around the globe. The business model is to provide one-on-one, highly personalized service. More than 500,000 Independent Beauty Consultants (IBCs) sell in 43 markets worldwide. Each IBC runs his or her own business by developing a client base and then providing services and products for sale to those clients. The IBCs were offered support through an e-commerce system with two major components: mymk.com and Mary Kay InTouch. Mymk.com allows IBCs to create instant online sites where customers can shop anytime directly with their personal IBC. Mary Kay InTouch streamlines the ordering process by automatically calculating discounts, detecting promotion eligibility, allowing the IBCs to access up-to-date product catalogs, and providing a faster way to transact business with the company.
a. How would organizational strategy need to change to respond to Mary Kay's new business strategy?
b. What changes would you suggest Mary Kay, Inc. managers make in their management systems in order to realize the intended benefits of the new systems? Specifically, what types of changes would you expect to make in the evaluation systems, the reward systems, and the feedback systems?