"Supporting the beauty consultant is the core of our business," says Jodie, who joined Mary Kay eight years ago and was appointed CIO in 1997. "The key to our success was developing technology that reinforces our business model."

Alan Alper, an e-business analyst at Gomez in Waltham, Mass., adds, "Mary Kay is a great example of how to manage channel conflict?don’t allow it to occur."

Mary Kay’s efforts to wed Internet technology with its old-fashioned image are easy to see at company headquarters. The outside of the building is granite and glass with cascading fountains. Inside, the pink-carpeted office of founder Mary Kay Ash?who suffered a stroke five years ago?remains essentially untouched since the day she left. Columns designed to look like lipstick tubes adorn the cafeteria. Despite these timeless touches, Jodie encountered little resistance from corporate officials or from far-flung beauty consultants when he helped introduce an application six years ago to help top sellers deliver reports and manage their business electronically. That application was initially connected to CompuServe but was later replaced with Internet protocols that gave consultants access through any ISP. Personal websites were first launched in 1997. "We were ahead of the Internet curve because it fit our model so well," Jodie says.

Six years later, beauty consultants use the Web to order products for their customers, message colleagues, file reports and register for Mary Kay events. Jodie’s team focused on simplicity when designing Internet applications, avoiding the need for extensive training and encouraging quick adoption. The tactic appears to have worked. Of the 500,000 beauty consultants in the United States, 380,000 have visited the internal website to place orders and get information about the company.

Mary Kay’s Web presence also draws a younger audience, both in recruiting new beauty consultants and attracting customers from a generation that might equate Mary Kay products with their mothers. For McGrath, the company’s Web efforts prove the company values technology. "I can’t imagine doing my business without the Internet," McGrath says. "I wouldn’t be keeping up with my customers. I have to be where they are."