The Success Factors: A Study of Amway in Malaysia

The paper presents the success factor of Amway in Malaysia. The paper proposes that leadership, teamwork and continuous improvement are the key success factors of Amway in Malaysia. Amway Malaysia is a multi-level marketing company that established in 1976. Amway employees are always motivated by their leaders and they focus on results. The study employs a qualitative methodology with face to face interviews. The paper concludes with some recommendation.


INTRODUCTION
In this modern age, if an organization lead to success must possess some inimitable factors that other organization cannot simply cope and applied in their organization. If other organizations can copy and apply those factors simply, it will reduce your organization's competitiveness. Thus, inimitable factors will become an organization's strength and even can bring the organization to achieve more challenging goals. As a result, inimitable factors will lead an organization to become successful. (Bensinger, G. ,2017).
According to the Conference Board Challenges study 2012, the main factors to be successful for organizations is teamwork and leadership. This is because culture and employees with different personalities which is difficult to copy by others. A corporate culture and innovative mindset that brings out the best in teams of diverse, talented, engaged and passionate people. The definition of teamwork is a group of people works collaboratively to achieve their goals. People with different skills can cover their colleagues' weakness who are working together with them in the organization. (Delaney, K.J.,2016) Besides, leadership is the activity of leading a group of people or an organization towards their targets. Leadership is important as a smart leader can affect the people around him and even bring them together in the project and use their different skills to achieve their common goals.
Most of the successful companies in this generation are an emphasis on teamwork and leadership factor as employees today are more likely to work in a team rather than an individual. This is because work as a team can produce a better outcome with a shorter time compared to work in an individual. Leadership is also vital because a good leader can make an organization operate more efficiently than the organization that leads by a person who lacks leadership (Brunner, R.,2017). An organization leader is a key person who decides an organization to be success or failure, so he or she must possess leadership.
To justify our ideal, Amway organization has been selected as our survey target. Amway was founded in Ada, Michigan, USA. Amway is the world's No. 1 direct selling company proved by Direct Selling News Global 100. Amway is operating in more than 100 countries and territories, and manufactures as well as distributes more than 450 consumer products, which are supported by our team of more than 950 Amway scientists, engineers and technical professionals working across more than 75 research and development (R&D) and quality assurance labs around the world. Top-selling brands for Amway include NUTRILITE vitamin, mineral and dietary supplements; ARTISTRY skincare products and colour cosmetics; and the eSpring water treatment system. The founders were Jay Van Andel and Rich DeVos. They started a business out of the basements of their homes in 1959. They believed people can have greater control of their lives and provide better for their families by owning a business. Thus, the Amway business was built to make it easier for other people to start and grow their businesses. The founders' entrepreneurial spirit continues to maintain an Amway position in the business field. Amway is one of the largest privately held companies in the United States now. Their sons of the founders still owned and run Amway.
In conclusion, we will prove the importance of teamwork and leadership and provide methods to apply these factors in the Amway organization by doing this assignment. We will assist Amway in the way to be successful. Thus, Amway can keep up the path of success in this globalization generation. This very vital because it can help many organizations in Malaysia to be more successful and sustainable. For example, it can help the small to medium enterprise (SME) to make more profit by reducing waste caused by the uncooperative team. Hence, Malaysia's economy will be improved and provided move job opportunities to our residents. Our living standard will increase by reducing the unemployment rate in Malaysia.

Background of Amway
Amway is one of the largest and oldest multilevel marketing companies (MLM) in the world. Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel found Amway in 1959, in Ada, Michigan. At that year, Amway launched a business model fuelled through the power of relationships. The first product launched by this model was Liquid Organic Cleanser (LOC). It was the first concentrated, bio-degradable and environmentally friendly product. After that, Amway was expanded from home products to a global leader in the categories of beauty and health.

Product and Service
Amway begins in Malaysia in 1976 in Ipoh. At that time, Amway Malaysia operating as a direct selling company, which engages in the distribution of consumer products. They selling nutrition and wellness products, skincare and cosmetics, personal care product, home care product, personal accessories, food and beverages, garments and household appliances.
Nowadays, Amway is a Malaysia-based investment holding company. Their principal activities consist of distribution of consumer products principally under the Amway trademark. Amway operates through two segments which are the "adults under the age of 35 segments (AU35)" and "Bumiputera segment". They also offer a program called BodyKey by NUTRILITE. This program includes a kit with the BodyKey Meal Replacement Shake and other NUTRILITE supplements, the INBODYBAND fitness activity tracker which is a wearable device that can analyze a person's body fat composition. Amway also offers ARTISTRY SUPREME LX Regenerating Cream and Eye Cream which suitable for female's firmness and evenness skin. For example, the ARTISTRY product includes the Ideal Radiance Illuminating CC Cream, Exact Fit Beauty Balm Perfecting Primer, HYDRA-V Advanced Hydration Kit, HYDRA-V Ampoule Mask, and HYDRA-V Essence Mist Refill. Next, E-Spring Water Treatment System and Atmosphere Air Purifier are testaments to Amway's constant drive to break new grounds with the latest innovations to meet the increasing market standards for safety and efficacy. Combining state-of-the-art technologies with sleek and contemporary design, these devices fit effortlessly into their customer's varying lifestyles, meet the common, solve the needs for clean water and clean air.

Amway Market Opportunity Analysis
Amway has a strong global presence which is present in over 80 countries with over 3 million business owners or agents. It means that Amway is not overly dependent on a single market. This helps Amway have a wide range of consumers to sell its product and gain more profit. Although, the main consumers of Amway products are women. Besides, Amway also has a long list of awards like Asia Pacific Frost & Sullivan Filtration company of the year Award, LEED gold certification, etc. These awards put Amway at a high level when comparing them with others among the multilevel marketing field. Amway also has a strength which is a wide product range. Amway offers about 115 products in 5 different categories which are personal care, home care, nutrition and wellness, cosmetics and gift catalog.
Amway also has weaknesses. Amway has a limited mode of availability. Amway products are only available through business owners or agents who are the direct sellers or online selling. This limited availability reduces Amway's market share to earn more profit. Moreover, Amway products are relatively costly and thus their target market is limited to the premium segment. Amway is heavily dependent on word of mouth to promote their product. Amway does not advertise on TV or through a brand ambassador and hence is dependent on word of mouth publicity. This action makes some consumers refuse to buy their products because of their long-winded agents. (refer interview question 2 in references) Amway also increases the availability of its products and explore more mediums to expand its customer base. Amway nowadays updates its ways to promote the product. They look to invest in ways to communicate with the customers and explore some options such as digital marketing to advertising internationally to promote their product.
Amway is facing intense competition nationally as well as internationally which stops it from increasing its market share. For example, the listed companies such as Hai-O Enterprise Berhad and Caring Pharmacy Group Berhad are continuously developing their innovative ideas to gain more profit and minimizing the profits gained by Amway through the consumer products-based market.
In 2015, Malaysia's total trade volume for personal care and cosmetics products was about US$2.24 billion. Over 50% of this demand was met by US$1.13 billion in imports. Skin-care products command the biggest market share with a total import valued of US$292 million. This is followed by cosmetics and toilet preparations with a value of US$109 million. Next are soaps and other skin-wash products, valued at US$104 million In Malaysia, typically the mass market or value pricing products do better compare to premium products due to pricing. Premium brands are inherently self-limiting market share, given that only upper-middle-income Malaysians can afford these products. Across the board, the main skin-care concerns cited by most Malaysians falls under whitening/ lightening/ brightening of blemish and acne scars, and anti-aging. Anti-aging cosmeceuticals are the most sought-after skin-care range. There is an increasing demand for shine-free and anti-blemish products. Oil-free hydration is highly in demand in comparison to any single store keeping unit out of the entire skin-care product mix. Product formulations that provide matt or silky, non-tacky and powdery finish types of products could do well in a hot & humid tropical country, like Malaysia. Malaysia's populace is also concerned about pigmentation, darkening of the skin tone, and skin cancer making sunscreen in high demand. Amway takes the opportunity on the above situation by promoting their skincare product and personal care product into the Malaysia market with some promotion like value packet, consume point, free testing sample, etc.

Technology environment for Amway
Amway has embraced the mobile and digital age that all of us currently live in, by adopting technology as a major enabler to support their Amway Business Owner's sales. They come out with a digital strategy that complements their physical stores, allows orders to be placed in a huge quantity and delivered via courier to improve the speed of service for the convenience of their business owner. They also will continue to invest in improving their mobile capabilities via mobile web improvements, order management systems, and enhance fulfillment and distribution networks to make doing the Amway business easier. Amway recognizes the high mobile penetration rate among adults under the age of 35. As such, this gives them the impetus to continue to invest in updating their digital infrastructure to make it even easier for our Amway business owners to conduct their business any time of the day using the mobile devices. They believe that such initiatives lay the foundation for sustained future growth.
Amway create the latest Amway digital applications call AMWAY Central in 2016, and their new application comes with a fresh new look, improved content, and accessibility to various Amway digital tools, all in one app and it can surf anytime and anywhere. Amway developed and launched the Amway Event mobile application for their Amway business owner leaders to stay up-to-date on events and trips they may be attending. They move from print to digital provides comprehensive information on all trips and events for our Amway business owners, which they can easily retrieve on their smart devices. In March 2016, Amway launched an official account on Instagram. They have had a tremendous response with more than 9,000 followers since they launched on Instagram. Amway also launched Amway Malaysia WeChat in December 2016. With an increasing number of Malaysian smartphone users using this mobile social communication application, they wanted to leverage the platform to enhance their communication with their Amway business owners and the public. One month after its launch, Amway has had more than 13,000 followers on board. (Amway annual report. (2016).

Leadership
In our opinion, one of the success factors that will lead Amway to the road to success is leadership. According to Stephen P. Robbins and Mary A. Coulter, leader refers to someone who can influence others and who has managerial authority and the leadership is a process of influencing a group to achieve goals.(Robbins, S. P. and Coulter, M, 2018)."A leader, without a follower, is just a lone nut." says an entrepreneur Derrick Sivers. (How to start movement, n.d.). A good leader may have some of the traits that differ from the other like drive, refer to a leader who has a strong desire to the achievement, desire to influences and lead people, have strong self confidence in order to convince other followers of the rightness of their goals and decisions and a leader should have the intelligence to gather, synthesize and interpret a large amount of information to create visions, solve problems, and make the correct decisions.
Leadership is important to Amway because a leader who has good leadership in an organization playing an incentive role in the working which he can motivate the employees with economic rewards like a bonus, or promotion and non-economic rewards like maternity leave and paid holiday thereby to gets the work from their followers. A suitable motivation that offers by the leader plays a role as a catalytic to the work progress finally leads the team steps on the ways of goals. As a conclude, Amway can give some free space on motivation decision making, not limited by the policies and conditions or terms. (Martin, S. 2016).
An efficiency leadership in Amway can let a leader build a comfortable working environment and culture at the workplace. A comfortable working environment and culture will let the followers feel comfortable with the ways of getting along and feel more easy integration into a group. This will make a strong relationship between the leader and the employees. Some of the problems that face by employees like ambiguity about the job scope and stress on work can solve probably and well. This is because based on a strong relationship, the leader can give them a guideline in their work and some suggestions or solutions for the stress that employees face. As a conclude, Amway can provide more budget or resources to each department for the developing purpose.
Leadership in Amway can let the leader or employees make the right decision to avoid waste resources and increase the efficiency of operation. A leader or an employee who has a strong leadership can gather the information, synthesize it and interpret the data or information and make it useful in the decision making. All these analyze that made by the leader or employees who have the leadership can avoid from wasting the company resources like human resources which are assigned the task to the right people or to the employees who have the capacity and reduce the financial resource waste by increasing the efficiency in the operating management. As a conclude, Amway can provide some live talk or training programs that talk about how to make the right decisions for the organization.
In conclusion, the leaders or the employees who have efficiency leadership can lead the organization goes on the path of success with high speed. The best example to explain is leadership and how was the success of the people who have leadership is Derek Sivers, an American entrepreneur, the founder and former president of CD Baby. Who says "a leader, without a follower, is just a lone nut." to explain the definition of the leader and say "A leader needs the guts to stand out and be ridiculed." (How to start movement,  n.d.)? to explain the traits of a leadership person who has the strong self-confidence.

Teamwork
The second factor that can help Amway's success is teamwork. According to the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary, teamwork can de define as the combined actions of a group of people working together effectively to achieve a goal (Cambridge dictionaries online, 2011). This factor is sensible for Amway because Amway operational in additional than one hundred countries and territories, quite 450 client merchandise manufactures and distributes by Amway, that area unit supported by their team of quite 950 Amway scientists, engineers and technical professionals operating across quite seventy-five R&D and quality assurance labs around the world. The team working between employees will be the most important factor that will lead Amway to go through success. (AMWAY, 2017).
Teamwork is suitable for Amway because the effective team working in the organization will create a diversity of thoughts or ideas in solving problems and decision making. The team member that has the difference in education level, experience, growing background, and culture or race will have the difference of ideas, opinions, and experience. These ideas and suggestions will become a useful resource in problems solving and decisions making. The management of the Amway should care about the entry-level of employees to enhance the relationship between employees, a strong relationship plays an important role in the teamwork forming.
Teamwork is useful to the Amway because teamwork can improve the efficiency and productivity in the organization. In a large company that needs to handle the different tasks every day, the large number of tasks will increase someone's burden and will cause the employees to become stressful and cause the employees cannot perform well in their job. If the task assigns to the groups, the tasks will be done in a short time with well because the acceptance of the idea is been increase and all the risks can be estimated by the diverse experiences of the members. Finally, the efficiency in time management can increase the production of the employees and lead the company more closely with the success road.
Teamwork is important because by the ways work in a team or a group in Amway, the employees can gain some great learning opportunities. In a group or a team that forms by difference background of members, all the knowledge that everyone has are the difference and uniqueness. Thereby through the ways work in a group or a team, each of the members can learn the different pieces of knowledge from others. Like communication skills, the ways to handle the tasks or the personality of someone. Further, through work in a team or group, we can learn another mistake thereby we can avoid and be aware the next time. These all offer a great opportunity to grow. In conclusion, teamwork will become the most important part of the way Amway goes through successfully. As Tom Wujec, a fellow at Autodesk say: "build a tower, build a team." (How to build a tower, n.d.). Teamwork is more important than what we thought before.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Leadership
Creating a strong pipeline of capable leaders commonly referred to as succession planning is one of the core jobs all executives and people professionals face. It's not just their job to ensure success today, but to set the company up for success tomorrow as well. This means that an organization must constantly have one eye trained on the future, and the people who will take it there. Leadership mentoring is a tried and trusted method for developing the best leaders of tomorrow. (Leadership mentoring: The key to developing and cultivating effective leaders, 2018). Mentor-mentee relationships are absolute to develop once serving to workers grow and advance their skills. There's nobody higher to be told leadership skills from than the leader. making a mentorship program wherever workers will sharpen their skills with the assistance of additional seasoned workers.
Mentorship programs don't seem to be solely helpful for assimilatory new hires, however they additionally function a good cross-training tool for current workers. we are able to attempt to implement a mentorship or job shadow program between team members or departments. This leadership tool will improve each structure success and team performance by rising employees' proficiency levels in roles outside of their own.
Leadership mentoring will facilitate Amway develops future leaders. This is as a result of it can facilitate workers imagine if you may sit down along with your future self and enkindle recommendation. You'd have some implausibly wise and valuable snippets to share along with your current self that will assist you navigate the approaching months and years and alter you to higher prepare yourself for what is to come back.
During leadership mentoring, Amway must concentrate on 2 vital key points to assist develop leadership that is learning from seeing and learning from doing. Learning from seeing which means leadership mentoring permits mentees to envision what nice leadership seems like, because the mentor is technically leading them; victimisation soft leadership skills to effectively communicate; leadership skills to encourage them and drive them forward, and arduous leadership skills to carry them in control of real progress. Feeling however the mentor coaches and mentors the mentee through the method permits the mentee to be told concerning folks management, discover however they prefer to be treated from a 'superior', and learn what sort of encouragement and interaction spurs them to be the most effective version of themselves; the hallmark of nice leadership and nice mentoring.
As for the opposite key purpose learning from doing is mentors additionally give mentees trying to find improved leadership with development tools, activities, and sensible suggestions for transitioning to changing into a much better leader. nice mentors spur proactivity in mentees and encourage them to participate in activities, tasks, and events that higher prepare them to attain their overarching goals.
A good mentor will know how to draw a mentee out of their comfort zone into more leadership-oriented environments and scenarios and can talk with a mentee about how they can address certain scenarios they are encountering in real-life, putting leadership skills into real-life context and real-life practice.
However, there's some risk of leadership mentoring. A potential disadvantage is mismatched try that if the mentor-mentee relationship is forced, like once a supervisor assigns associate full-fledged worker to tutor a replacement rent, it's potential that the 2 might not hit it off, or that the mentor might feel he does not have the time to meet the role whereas still finishing up his traditional job duties. The strained relationship will be harmful and even create the mentee feel he's not a welcome addition to the corporate. therein case, finding another mentor might facilitate everybody concerned.
Another potential disadvantage is frustration that in some instances, the mentor might feel that the mentee isn't progressing quickly enough or does not appear in a position or willing to follow her direction, resulting in frustration. The mentee might also become annoyed if she feels that she isn't obtaining the steerage she desires. In either state of affairs, it should be necessary for the mentee to seek out a replacement mentor if sensible before true erodes additional.
In conclusion, this is often what leadership mentoring will for Amway's prospective leaders. It provides them with a forum for setting, discussing and directional a path to leadership with somebody World Health Organization has walked that path before. we have a tendency to all prefer to consider our journey as completely distinctive, and whereas there are in fact some distinctive parts (including you), there are way more similarities and shared experiences between your path to X or Y, and some other person path thereto same destination.

Teamwork
To develop cooperation skills organizations ought to set a particular goal. All workers ought to be clear on the long-run goals of the organization. This could be coated throughout the onboarding method for brand spanking new workers and regular updates should be created via company conferences. (How to encourage teamwork in your business, 2018). If the organization doesn't have clearly outlined, measurable goals then it's laborious to stay everybody on an equivalent page. If everybody is aware of that the organization's goal, this may influence all team communications and keep everybody occupancy an equivalent direction. With goals for the organization clearly declared, you'll be able to currently set goals for individual groups. after you have clear goals to figure towards, communications become efficient and cooperation becomes purposeful.
The team understands the goals and is useful in attaining them. For effective cooperation, the clear direction and guideline on mission are needed. Further, team members should have some of Associate in Nursing overall mission that's approved which can let the team tries to do something under protection. the organization which has clear expectation about their team's work, goals or outcomes, the clarity of the team can be bolstered (Archery team building, 2019) To develop cooperation skills to Amway workers, Amway will set a sensible goal. a sensible goal is employed to assist guide goal setting. good is Associate in Nursing word form that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. Therefore, a sensible goal incorporates all of those criteria to assist focus employees' efforts and increase the probabilities of achieving company goals.
Specific goals have a considerably larger probability of being accomplished. to create a goal specific, the 5 "W" queries should be thought-about that is World Health Organization, what, where, once and why. a sensible goal must-have criterion for measure progress. If there aren't any criteria, Amway won't be ready to verify company progress and if the organization is on target to succeed in the corporate goal. a sensible goal should be accomplishable. This will facilitate the corporate fathom ways that the corporate can understand that goal and work towards it. The possibility of the goal ought to be stretched to create the corporate feel challenged, however outlined to a tolerable degree that the corporate are able to do it. a sensible goal should be realistic in this the goal may be realistically achieved given the out their resources and time. a sensible goal is probably going realistic if the corporate believes that it may be accomplished. a sensible goal should be time-bound in this it's a begin and end date. If the goal isn't timeconstrained, there'll be no sense of urgency and motivation to realize the goal. However, there's some risk once we set specific goals. it'll blind your opportunities. Goals focus your attention and energy on one task. You recede receptive different opportunities and potentialities. there's m thanks to get to your destination, however after you set the goal, you limit yourself with simply a couple of ways that to urge there. this may lead to uncomprehensible opportunities or drooping performance on tasks unrelated to the goal. the answer for this can be to designate a member of your team to stay a watch out for brand spanking new opportunities. invariably be learning and open yourself up for all potentialities.
Another risk becomes result-focused instead of progress-focused. the matter is that folks tend to focus an excessive amount of on the goal. They solely see the result instead of progress. the majority tend to place an excessive amount of attention on their goals that they forget that concerning the progress. Remember, it's your progress which will get you the result. while not creating the progress, you are not getting to get the result.
In conclusion, smart cooperation helps to make morale within the work, that makes employees a lot of productive and ultimately improves profits. For organizations that have wonderful cooperation, problem-solving is simplersince folks with completely different skills and data can work along to supply a resourceful answer. 16. (Mullany, A ,2016) CONCLUSIONS 1. The first recommendation in this regard is the need to provide training and development to employees. It is through providing training to employees on teamwork, leadership management, communication skills, problem-solving and decision making that companies can achieve a higher level of business performance. Amway needs to work on the inclusion of these programs in induction as well. Companies that emphasize this dimension at the time of recruitment and selection can achieve sustainability in organizational performance.
2. The company needs to work on research and development. It is important to note that working on research and development can allow the company to assess and identify the core needs of customers. Moreover, it can allow them to achieve more control over their resources and use them for driving a higher level of business performance.
3. The proposed mentorship and other programs need to be specifically designed keeping in view the needs of employees. The programs also need to be based