Network marketers move into VN

Herbalife, a manufacturer of dietary supplements and other healthfood products, has opened its second office in Ha Noi and launched the Casa programme at the Hoa Binh Humanitarian Centre aimed at improving the nutrition of children in Viet Nam. Viet Nam News reporter Mai Huong spoke to Herbalife International’s managing director for the Asia-Pacific William M Rahn about the programme and the company’s business strategy.
How would you assess Herbalife’s business performance in Viet Nam over the past two years?

William M.Rahn
Herbalife started operations in Viet Nam in 2009. It’s the 71st country in which Herbalife is doing business and the 13th market in our Asia-Pacific region. In just two years, Viet Nam is now already our 16th leading market. Viet Nam is a strategic market for Herbalife in the Asia-Pacific region, and we are confident that there is a lot of potential yet to explore.
The opening of our office in Ha Noi is a key milestone in our long-term business expansion plan. We’ll keep investing in this market and exploring more business opportunities.
Establishing a manufacturing facility here could be one way of gaining consumer trust. Does Herbalife have any plans to do so?
It’s a part of the discussion we’re having for Viet Nam in terms of investment. If consumers believe that the products need to be made here for quality and safety, that would be a big reason why we would build here. However, before building a manufacturing facility here we need to grow a little bit more. We currently have plants in South Korea, Japan, India and the Philippines. They’re not all our manufacturing plants but joint ventures through which we produce products in Asia. So, we are now looking at Viet Nam, Thailand and Indonesia.
Many people feel imported products are good quality, but from my point of view and from the Government in each country, it’s better to produce in the country. We don’t have a specific plan now but we will do in the future.
Many consumers think the prices of Herbalife products are too high. Why are people willing to pay the high price?
We don’t look at pricing as a sole metric but look at the value of the product. For example, the prices of our products in Viet Nam are much cheaper than they are in South Korea or Taiwan. What we do is to look at the market prices of the market, what can sustain the price, and try to keep that price level, regardless of inflation and changes in the marketplace. What distributors and consumers are looking for is product value. If you look at our product price at a single unit, it appears expensive only because there are many servings in them.
Herbalife products are clinically proven and have a strong scientific basis for their effects. As we do business in more countries, people are learning the differences between our products and others.
We also distribute using a “coaching” process and that makes a big difference. What is critical in health is that someone talks to you, and tells you how to use the product and how many times, they follow up and coach you, and that’s what our distributors do with consumers. It’s not just buying a product but getting help by reminding you how to use the product until you see the benefit on your own. You now believe in the product.
The Herbalife Family Foundation has just initiated the first Casa Herbalife Programme in Viet Nam aimed at improving nutrition for children at risk. Tell us about it.
When opening a market, we identify many different types of community services and charities to which we can contribute. We think children in the world are victims of many different things and we should support them. First of all, because if you provide good nutrition to children, it will stay with them for the rest of their lives and they will be healthy.
Therefore, we establish a good way we can support the community and focus on children as key. That’s why we started the Casa programme. We don’t try to build a health centre; we just go to centres and are responsible there for a nutrition programme.
We currently have 65 Casa Herbalife in 42 countries, all very small. We started up slowly but we’ve opened more in the last two or three years. In my vision, we should have more centres in Viet Nam because it’s the only way to have an impact on society. — VNS

Tags: Herbalife, Herbalife Vietnam

Posted by VBN on Aug 4 2011. Filed under Health & Drugs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry