CEO, Amway India
“The global
pandemic has shown its impact across industries, including the direct selling
industry. While we, at Amway India, are expecting short-term to mid-term impact
like many businesses, we are positive about coming out of this stronger than
ever. However, our priority is to follow all Government guidelines to contain
the spread of COVID-19.
Prioritizing
the safety of our employees, direct sellers and our consumers, we deployed
responsive strategies to ensure business continuity and maintain operational
readiness from time to time. We have constituted a COVID-19 Crisis Committee
comprising select members of the leadership team. The team is responsible for
charting out and guiding the crisis strategy for the Indian market.
Amidst all the
limitations and challenges, we thank the Government of India for recognizing
the need for including nutraceuticals and health supplements as ‘essential
food’ items, allowing us to continue the manufacturing of the essential
goods at our plant. Despite the scarcity of labour and supply chain
disruptions, we have been able to recover and resume operations.
The public
health emergency has paved the way for increased awareness of holistic and
preventive healthcare among consumers. Now self-care and immunity
building has gained significant momentum among communities. It
reflects in a spurt in demand for our products in Nutrilite portfolio with
preference for herbal SKUs -. The category’s contribution is expected to grow
faster with current contribution of 56% is expected to increase to 65%. We are
further building upon the category with special focus on immunity-boosting
products such as Nutrilite All Plant Protein Powder, Nutrilite Daily, Nutrilite
Natural C, amongst others. At least in the medium term, we expect that these
products will remain in grocery shopping lists and become key revenue drivers
for the company in the space.
With the
increasing volatility in the job market owing to a current crisis scenario, we
foresee entrepreneurship as a desired/ viable career by choice. The
trend gives a huge thrust to the Direct selling industry as it offers a
zero-investment guided entrepreneurial opportunity. As people look for
flexibility, personal growth along with supplemental income, we believe the gig
economy will become a significant driver of the economy in the coming years.
Interestingly,
COVID-19 has proved to be a catalyst for a smooth transition of our business
from the offline to the online. We foresee continued digital
transformations at every level of our operations. Hence, our efforts will
continue to build and strengthen our digital capabilities to ensure efficient
functioning of the business. All our training and meetings with the direct
sellers has shifted online and have conducted over 2500 online training
programs engaging over 5.50 lakhs Amway Direct Sellers since the lockdown.
Moreover, there is a significant shift to online ordering from 33.6% in Feb
2020 to 90% that demanded smart management of orders and tie-up with new
vendors for product deliveries at home. We are hoping to bounce back our
business to stability in next 45 days and with the second phase starting May
18th, post the Government’s direction on labour reforms and factory
operations etc., we are hopeful to achieve 80 -90% level of business which was
before pre-lockdown by July 2020.
We firmly
believe that a new consumer will emerge in the post-COVID-19 era, which will
drive new business models while setting the foundation for innovative products
and services.”
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