October 3rd, 2007 @ 4:30 pm…

This memo from our Amway Europe management made its rounds of the company this week. We thought you would like to see it, too:

EXPO: A historic re-launch in the UK & Ireland

September marked an important turning point in the history of Amway in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. More than 4,000 people – Amway Business Owners from the UK and Ireland, customers, VIP guests including the Chairman of the European Federation of Direct Selling, Director of the UK DSA, leading European IBO’s and over 200 Amway staff from Europe and Ada – gathered together to relaunch Amway’s UK and Irish business, at one of England’s most prestigious business venues, The National Exhibition Centre (N.E.C) Birmingham.

The EXPO offered terrific product training sessions with an amazing line up of seven Amway Expert Speakers – Eddie Funkhouser (EFNY), Jason Roberts (iCook), Dr Duke Johnson (Nutrilite), Sean Foy (Nutrilite), Dr Ogilvie (Artistry Time Defiance), Michelle D’Alliard (Artistry) and John Gillespie (Satinique) – in one place for the first time ever, plus a brand new workshop on Retailing. But most important, the EXPO offered concrete proof that, despite one of the biggest challenges we have ever faced, Amway is 100 percent committed to building the UK and Irish market for the long term, and building it the right way.

The UK market was rocked earlier this year by news of an investigation by the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), which resulted, in April, in legal proceedings being initiated against Amway UK and two independent system organisations, Britt UK and Network 21. At the heart of the DTI’s concerns was how the business opportunity was being promoted, and in particular:

That people were persuaded to join Amway on the basis that it provides “easy money” or “minimal effort”.
That recruitment was the primary focus and retailing was not.
That Amway Business Owners were encouraged to spend too much money on Business Support Materials.
That Amway does not enforce its Business Support Materials Quality Control Policy (the BSM policy).
The DTI is serious enough about these concerns that they are asking the court to close our UK Company.

We are vigorously defending ourselves in the legal proceedings and there is a lot in the DTI’s case that we strongly dispute.

In the short term, we have addressed the DTI’s immediate concerns head on. In May, we put a moratorium on BSM activity and sponsoring that is still in place. We have not added a single IBO since 4 May 07 and we have proactively enforced the BSM ban and strengthened our Business Conduct Team.

For the long term, we made an even more important decision: to transform and revitalise the way we do business in the UK.

So we are making exciting changes to the Sales and Marketing Plan, to product pricing and to how the company supports the people who sell our products.

e.g.

New terminology: Retail Consultant, Certified Retail Consultant, and Certified Business Consultant, all under the banner of Amway Business Owners (ABO)
Single retail price for everybody
Customer volume rebate (retail profit) paid back to ABO
Mandatory orientation and certification at different levels before ABOs may recruit others, participate in the Performance Bonus Schedule or benefit from SIP/NCA
Mandatory Customer Volume required from registered customers
Minimum income requirements for recognition
Significantly reduced pricing in Personal care and Homecare.
We are committing to support our Amway Business Owners with significantly enhanced levels of training and marketing support.

We are eliminating registration fees and renewal fees, and making fundamental reforms to the marketing of BSMs, if and when they are re-introduced to the UK and Irish markets.

We are also transitioning our current ‘Independent Business Owners’ over to a new ‘Amway Business Owner’ contract with the current contract expiring on 15 October and have had to communicate, that their current contract will be “terminated”. Yes the current contract will expire and will technically be ‘terminated’; legal language needs to be applied in a contract situation. The key point here is that it’s the contracts, which are being terminated so that we can transition our people over to the new mode of operations by means of a transitional contract. As you can imagine, this is also terminology that will be spun by those who do not wish to move forward into the new mode of operations with us and we are already seeing that on a number of blogs and websites. What they have failed to mention is that it’s the same for nearly all current business owners in the UK and Ireland, and having discussed this with them in detail at EXPO, they understand the rationale as to why.

You will notice we mentioned ‘nearly all’ above. Yes, we are parting ways with some who found themselves unable to commit to those reforms.

We are certain there will be fallout from some of these changes, and certain that some of those who misrepresented our business in the past will also attempt to misrepresent the positive changes we have planned for the future.

As the old saying goes, these changes will not be easy – only necessary. And we are not out of the woods yet. But with the support of committed leaders in the UK and Ireland – and support from so many of you around the Amway world – we are making real progress. And there is no better way to meet a challenge than that.

The UK situation has not gone unnoticed and there are many questions and some speculation out there. We are doing what we have to do to survive in this market. We will do what it takes and preserve the integrity of Amway and the UK and Irish ABO’s that have made it great, who will transition and partner with us.

We have taken no shortcuts and spared no resource to address the concerns about how the business was operated. We intend to come through this a stronger and more attractive business in the UK and Ireland as a result. We believe we have a great future ahead of us.

Amway is a multi-level marketing, or network marketing, company founded in 1959 by Jay Van Andel and Rich DeVos. The company's name is an abbreviation of "American Way."[1] Based in Ada, Michigan, the company and family of companies under Alticor reported sales of $6.4 billion for the performance year ending August 31, 2005, marking the company’s sixth straight year of growth. Its product lines include personal care products, jewelry, Nutrilite dietary supplements, water purifiers, air purifiers, insurance and cosmetics. Amway conducts business through a number of affiliated companies in more than ninety countries and territories around the world.[2] In the United States and Canada it now operates as Quixtar.

The original intent of Amway's founders was to create a business using a novel means of product distribution that facilitates entrepreneurialism, understanding of economic management, and economic independence among its associates (i.e. distributors; the term currently in use is Independent Business Owners, or IBOs). Rich DeVos also wrote a book called Compassionate Capitalism while Jay Van Andel wrote a book entitled An Enterprising Life.

Some controversies have developed around their business models.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 History
o 1.1 Founding and expansion
o 1.2 FTC investigation
o 1.3 Other legal cases
o 1.4 Corporate restructuring
o 1.5 Orlando Arena naming rights
o 1.6 DTI complaints in UK
* 2 Politics and culture
* 3 Controversy
* 4 References in popular culture
* 5 References
* 6 Books
* 7 Documentaries
* 8 External links
o 8.1 Profiles
o 8.2 Media articles
o 8.3 Government documents

[edit] History

[edit] Founding and expansion

Ja-Ri Corporation was the original multi-level marketing distributorship for Nutrilite nutritional products, founded by Jay Van Andel, Richard DeVos and Michael Pacetti in 1949.[3] Ja-Ri's name comes from the founders' first names, Jay and Richard. Friends since childhood, Van Andel and DeVos became business partners in endeavors such as a hamburger stand, air charter service, and a sailing business.

Ja-Ri was incorporated in 1959, and changed its name to "Amway" in 1963.[4] All Amway and Quixtar distributors are "downline" to the founders. Their first product was the cleaner, L.O.C. In 1964 the Amway Sales Corporation, Amway Services Corporation, and Amway Manufacturing Corporation, merged to form a single company.[5]

Amway bought the Mutual Broadcasting System radio network in 1977 and sold it in 1985.

Amway expanded overseas to Australia in 1971, to Europe in 1973, to parts of Asia in 1974, to Japan in 1979, to Latin America in 1985, to China in 1995, to Africa in 1997, and to Russia in 2005. Amway India was established in 1995 and commenced commercial operations in 1998 [6].

The product line grew, with a new detergent SA8 added in 1960, and later the hair care range Satinique (1965) and Artistry(1968). Amway bought control of Nutrilite in 1972 and full ownership in 1994.

[edit] FTC investigation

Main article: In re. Amway Corp.

In the 1979 In re. Amway Corp. (93 F.T.C. 618) ruling,[7] the Federal Trade Commission found that Amway does not qualify as an illegal pyramid scheme since the main aim of the enterprise is the sale of product and money is paid only for business volume, personal and group. It did, however, order Amway to change several business practices and prohibited the company from misrepresenting the amount of profit, earnings or sales its distributors are likely to achieve with the business. Amway was ordered to accompany any such statements with the actual averages per distributor, pointing out that more than half of the distributors do not make any money, with the average distributor making less than $100 per month. The order was violated with a 1986 ad campaign, resulting in a $100,000 fine. [citation needed]

Amway (and its American online incarnation, Quixtar) have been controversial due to allegations that these companies are pyramid schemes or cults, despite the 1979 FTC ruling[5] that legitimized the Amway business. The case revealed that, as of 1979, most of the products sold by Amway were to the Independent Business Owners (IBOs) themselves for personal consumption rather than to retail consumers who weren't enrolled as IBOs. Buying products or directing clients to buy from Amway or Quixtar gives IBOs points and they are paid back on the number of points that they generate from personal consumption or from client volume. An existing IBO can sponsor others to get an IBO number so that they can help others divert their buying habit from other stores to Amway or Quixtar. Thus, the business grows as a greater number of people join the group. The share of profit is based on the volume that an IBO is responsible for each month, therefore an IBO may actually make more money per month than the IBO who sponsored them into the Business.

[edit] Other legal cases

In 1983, Amway pleaded guilty to criminal tax evasion and customs fraud in Canada, resulting in a fine of $25 million CAD, the largest fine ever imposed in Canada. The company was fined another $45 million CAD in 1989 to settle a suit brought by Canada's trade office.[8][9]

In a 1994 interview, Amway co-founder Rich DeVos stated that this incident had been his greatest "moral or spiritual challenge", first in "soul searching as to whether they had done anything wrong" and then for pleading guilty for technical reasons, despite believing they were innocent of the charges. DeVos stated he believed that the case had been motivated by "political reasons".[10]

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), as part of its anti-piracy efforts, sued Amway and several distributors in 1995. The RIAA alleged that copyrighted music was used on "highly profitable" training videotapes. Amway settled the case out of court for $9 million.[citation needed] In a related lawsuit initiated by the distributors involved, the Court established that Mahaleel Lee Luster, who had been contracted to make the videotapes, had violated copyright without the knowledge of three of the five of those distributors.[11]

Amway grew quickly in China starting from 1995. In 1998, after abuses of illegal pyramid schemes led to riots, the Chinese Government enacted a ban on all direct selling companies, including Amway.[12] After negotiations, some companies like Amway, Avon, and Mary Kay continued to operate through a network of retail stores promoted by an independent sales force. Although multi-level payments were still banned, it is alleged that Amway didn't significantly alter its pay scheme, and justified them as payments for services. [13] China introduced new direct selling laws in December 2005, and in December 2006 Amway was one of the first companies to receive a license to resume direct sales. At the time they had a reported 180,000 sales representatives, 140 stores, and $2 billion in annual sales.[14] Multi-level marketing (commissions on sales of new sales persons recruited) is still forbidden under the new laws.

On August 14, 2007 the Supreme Court of India has order the Andhra state police to complete the investigate against Amway in 6 Months.The public interest petition alleges that the activities of the company violated laws related to drugs, income tax and sales tax. The state high court had declared that Amway's business scheme was an offence under the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Scheme (Banning) Act, 1978.[15]

[edit] Corporate restructuring

In 1999 the founders of the Amway corporation launched a sister (and separate) Internet-based company named Quixtar. The Alticor corporation owns both Amway and Quixtar, plus several other concerns. Quixtar replaced the North American business of Amway in 2001, with Amway operating in the rest of the world; however, in June 2007 it was announced that the Quixtar brand would be phased out over a 18 to 24 month period in favor of a unified Amway brand worldwide.[16]Amway's internet sales in Europe are conducted via their Amivo website. The Access Business Group was split off to handle manufacturing.

Later additions to the core product range included water filters and cookware.[17] The eSpring water filter, introduced in 2000 and developed by Alticor, includes eCoupled wireless power induction technology. Alticor subsidiary Fulton Innovation introduced the technology in other consumer electronic products at the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show. Companies licensing the technology include General Motors, Motorola and Visteon.[18][19]

[edit] Orlando Arena naming rights

In December 2006, Alticor secured the naming rights for the 17,000-seat basketball arena in Orlando, Florida - home of the Orlando Magic which are owned by the family of Rich DeVos. The arena, formerly known as the TD Waterhouse Centre, is now called Amway Arena.

[edit] DTI complaints in UK

In 2007, following investigations that lasted more than a year, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in UK issued petitions against Amway as well as two IBO organizations Britt World Wide and Network 21, and initiated civil court proceedings. DTI's objections include misrepresentation of the financial rewards expected from the Amway business, excessive promotion of BSMs (Business Support Materials like books, tapes, CDS, meetings, websites) and Amway's failure to prevent these abuses.

Subsequently, Amway imposed a ban on sale of BSM in UK that are not authorized and distributed by Amway. It further announced a 120 day moratorium on registration of new IBOs in UK, and a thorough review of its business practices globally [20] [21].

[edit] Politics and culture

Commentators have identified Amway as supporting the U.S. Republican Party,[22] and its founders contributed $4,000,000 to a conservative 527 in the 2004 election cycle.[23] Amway states that its business opportunity is open to people regardless of their religious and political beliefs [3].

Former Amway CEO Richard DeVos has been connected with the dominionist political movement in the U.S.[24]

Multiple high-ranking Amway leaders, including Richard DeVos, Dexter Yager, and others are also owners and members of the board of Gospel Films, a producer of movies and books geared towards conservative Christians as well as co-owner (along with Salem Communications) of Gospel Communications[25].[citation needed]

One of Amway's most successful distributors, Dexter Yager, has attacked Democratic President Bill Clinton.[26] and allowed Republican George W. Bush to send messages to thousands of downline distributors using Yager's voicemail system.[27]

Doug Wead, who was a Special Assistant to former U.S. President George H. W. Bush, is a successful IBO who is a regular speaker at group rallies.[citation needed]

Amway cofounder, the late Jay Van Andel (in 1980), and later his son Steve Van Andel (in 2001) were elected by the board of directors of the United States Chamber of Commerce as chairman of that organization. [citation needed]

In May 2005, former Amway President Dick DeVos, one of the wealthiest and largest charitable givers in Michigan, announced that he would run against Governor Jennifer Granholm in Michigan's 2006 gubernatorial election. DeVos, running as a Republican, won 42% of the popular vote, while Granholm won 56%.[citation needed]

Amway touts the environmental benefits of many of its products, and in June 1989 the United Nations Environmental Program's Regional Office for North America recognized it for its contributions to the cause of the environment.[28]

[edit] Controversy

Several groups including those associated with the anti-cult movement have expressed concern that tactics of AMOs may constitute cult-like activity. Steven Hassan's Freedom of Mind Center lists the practices of AMOs as potentially abusive according to his "BITE" Model of mind control.[29] Other similar organizations that have expressed concern with the activities of AMOs in practice include FACTnet,[30] Cult Awareness and Information Centre (Australia),[31] and others. The Rick Ross Institute keeps a collection of related material in its website.[32]

A Dateline NBC report from 2004 picked up the criticism against Amway's successor Quixtar and explicitly linked the two companies as being effectively one and the same.[33]

One controversy that Amway was involved with was an urban legend that the (old) Procter & Gamble service mark is in fact a Satanic symbol or that the CEO of P&G is himself a practicing Satanist (in some variants of the urban legend, it is also claimed that the CEO of Procter & Gamble donated "satanic tithes" to the Church of Satan[34]). Procter & Gamble alleged that several Amway distributors were behind a resurgence of the urban legend in the 1990s and sued several independent Amway distributors and the parent company for defamation and slander. After more than a decade of lawsuits in multiple states, by 2003 all allegations against Amway and Amway distributors had been dismissed, with the trial judge declaring "Throughout this and its related protracted and duplicative litigation, P&G has tried to evade the law of the case doctrine, and has squandered scarce judicial resources".[35][36] However, in October 2005 a Utah appeals court reversed part of the decision dismissing the case against four Amway distributors, and remanded it to the earlier court for further proceedings.[37] On 20 March 2007, Procter & Gamble was awarded 19.25 million dollars by a U.S. District Court jury in Salt Lake City, in the lawsuit filed against four Amway distributors in 1995.[38][39]

[edit] References in popular culture

* Michael Moore's 1989 documentary Roger & Me profiles a woman named Janet who quits as a feminist radio host after General Motors' closings of several factories in their hometown of Flint, Michigan send the town into an economic tailspin. The woman, whose husband is a GM auto worker who may soon lose his job, joins Amway as a saleswoman, and is seen demonstrating how she uses "color consulting" to analyze potential customers.
* Michael Douglas, acting as President Andy Shepherd in the movie The American President, responds to a T.V. clip of his rival Bob Rumson, portrayed by Richard Dreyfuss, who declares "My name is Bob Rumson, and I'm running for President!" by snidely saying "Sure glad he cleared that up, because that crowd was about to buy some Amway products!"
* Gil Gunderson, a recurrent character in hit TV show The Simpsons famous for being employed in several low-income and degrading jobs, such as erotic dancer or janitor, was shown in one episode as an Amway salesman.
* In the 2007 movie, Believe The Movie, after Tom Hawks' involvement in the failed Pyramid scheme of Believe International, he announces that Believe wasn't very good and that he has found something much better. He refers to his decision to join up with Amway by saying, "Have you ever heard of Amway?"
* The 1999 movie Go featured a bit of dialogue that has become famous: "You want us to sell Amway?!" "It's Confederated Products. It's a... It's a different company. It's a different quality of product."

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Liu Xiang	Asafa Powell

Asafa Powell
World-record holder, 100m sprint

Winning
On June 14, 2005, at the World Grand Prix in Athens, Greece, Asafa Powell set a new world record for the 100-meter sprint, with an astounding time of just 9.77 seconds. Only three months earlier, Asafa had added Nutrilite® Double X®, to his training regimen. Since that day in Greece, Asafa has tied his world record-setting time, twice. Once on June 11, 2006, in Gateshead, England, and again on August 18, 2006, in Zurich, Switzerland. And he completed the fastest season in recorded history, clocking 12 races in under 10 seconds
Race techniques
Asafa is the world-record holder in the 100-meter sprint. Timing and technique are crucial for this race because, in a distance of just over 328 feet, often just a few hundredths of a second are all that separates the winner from the rest of the pack. In the 100-meter sprint, runners crouch at the starting line and take off at full speed as soon as the starter’s pistol fires.

Liu Xiang
World-record holder, 110m hurdles

Winning
On July 11, 2006, Liu Xiang raced to victory in the 110-meter hurdles at the IAAF Super Grand Prix in Lausanne, Switzerland, setting a new world record with a time of just 12.88 seconds. Just five years earlier, at the tender age of 18, Xiang burst onto the racing scene by making the semifinals at the World Championships. One year later, he set the World Junior and Asian records for the 110-meter hurdles. And just a year after that, Xiang won gold at the 2004 Olympic Games. Today, Xiang is the newest global brand ambassador for Nutrilite. “I will definitely deliver the Nutrilite philosophy to every corner of the world,” said Xiang.

Race techniques
Xiang set his world record in the 110-meter hurdles. The 110-meter hurdles is considered the standard sprint hurdle race and includes 10 42-inch-high hurdles, which participants must leap over as they run. The first hurdle is placed 15 yards from the starting line and the distance between hurdles is 10 yards.

Similarities
Asafa Powell and Liu Xiang (as is standard practice in China, Xiang’s first name appears after his last name when written together) have become friends over their congruent racing careers. And there are a lot of similarities between the two fastest men in the world.

Asafa: Means “rising to the occasion”.
Xiang: Means “spreading wings to fly”.

Asafa: World-record holder in the 100-meter sprint.
Xiang: World-record holder in the 110-meter hurdles.

Asafa: The product of a strict upbringing, Asafa learned the importance of discipline at a young age.
Xiang: Recruited at a young age, Xiang was placed in a special sports school in Shanghai where he took classes for a half day and trained for a half day.

Asafa: In high school, a teacher who saw Asafa run told him he could be a runner. Until that point, Asafa had thought you could only play football if you wanted to be an athlete.
Xiang: After a bone test showed Xiang wouldn’t grow tall enough to be a successful high jumper, his parents withdrew him from the sports school. A coach came to his parents and pleaded with them to reenroll him, this time as a hurdling student.

Asafa: Chose to attend a university in Kingston, Jamaica, despite offers from prominent American universities, out of respect for his parents. To this day, he continues to live and train in Jamaica.
Xiang: As Xiang was claiming victory at the National Games in Guangzhou, China, his beloved grandmother lost her battle with pancreatic cancer. He was very upset by her death and has dedicated himself to doing his best in every competition for his grandmother.
To know more, click on the link below:

http://www.nutrilite.com/en-us/Science/PersonalHealth/PrefontaineClassic.aspx