Strategic Agility by Bettina Büchel and Rhoda Davidson - Preview

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Strategic Agility: The Art of Piloting Initiatives

then immediately check inventory and secure orders online. Dubbed the “Promise,” the SMT initiative was expected to save approximately $40 million per year. According to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing made by Avon on December 9, 2013, the project was abandoned with a write-off of between $100 and $125 million. The system was piloted in Canada, but it “caused significant business disruption in that market.” The SEC filing revealed that the system “did not show a clear return on investment” and that the decision to stop the project “was made in light of the potential risk of further disruption.” Reports available in the press indicated that there were issues with the front-end e-commerce components rather than the back-end systems. Basic functions such as logging in, saving orders and checking inventory were not working properly. Furthermore, complaints about usability surfaced. Users of tablet devices had become accustomed to easy-to-use apps that could be navigated with the touch of a finger. Reports indicated that the Avon user interface was poorly structured and did not meet users’ expectations for a modern tablet app. While back-end systems were typically more clunky and more difficult to use, apps were becoming simpler and easier. Previous apps involved typing, picking from lists, filling in forms, etc. The more recent apps aimed to get the job done in as few steps as possible by using graphics, images and icons to make the journey from start to finish as simple as possible. Although the intent was there, design issues resulted in a system that did not meet the agents’ expectations of how the app should function. The net effect was disastrous. One senior sales executive lost more than 300 of her sales agents because of the project (1/3 of her total sales team). Although many of the agents that were lost had smaller volumes, and their lower levels of income may not have warranted them battling through the deployment glitches, the SEC filing revealed that the impact was clearly significant enough for Avon to decide to back away from further deployments.