Analysis of the Overall Business Environment of M&S

In the context of global expansion and competition of numerous businesses, effective marketing management is one of the key factors of success, playing an essential role in obtaining competitive advantage. Hence, the success of a company is determined by its ability to identify customers’ needs and offering products and/or services to satisfy them.

M&S are one of the UK's leading retailers of clothes, food, home products and financial services. Some 10 million people shop with us each week in over 375

Marks and Spencer Group (M&S) is the premier retailer in clothing, foods and home ware within the United Kingdom. The company’s commitment to quality, value, service, innovation and trust is a key contributor to their success as a high street retailer in the UK. Their current core UK operations centre around three divisions, food, general merchandise (including clothing and home ware), and the financial services industry. Therefore Tesco plc is the prime UK retailer to analyse and compare growth, financial performance and the financial status of M&S Plc in line with other competitors within the same industry.

Predominantly M&S are known as a clothing retailer but has grown organically into food and furnishings but, market watchers tend to judge their performance on the

It is very crucial for every business to have a strong supply chain network in order to satisfy its customers before the competitors do. M&S though being one of the UK’s largest retailers is criticised by its Finance

The previous arrangement followed by Marks and Spencer demonstrates the concept of hierarchical structure, however in the last five years, due to a rise in their competitors within in the retail industry in the UK, their strategies have now become more focused on innovation and customer service’s quality. Therefore, their tall structure was redefined to adapt to these changes.

Helen’s is an upmarket fashion boutique store in Sydney’s east. Falling sales have been reflected by surveys that reveal consumers view the business as outdated and no longer relevant to consumers’ needs. Strong competition in the area has placed considerable pressure on pricing. The business’s target market, 50-65 year old females, no longer dominated the now younger demographic character of the area.

Market players generally have a wide variety of potential customers, which considerably weakens buyer power. Although consumers in this industry may be loyal to particular brands or chains, loyalty to retailer brands is arguably less important than competitive pricing. Many supermarkets run rewards programs for frequent shoppers, such as Tesco’s ‘Clubcard’, and these schemes can help companies retain customers and reduce buyer power.

Lack of segmentation: M&S is targeting more on middle age women, whereas clothing market has many segments which are not effectively targeted by the company. For example, younger generation prefer other brands like GAP, NEXT etc., as discussed by Petah Marian.

Marks and Spencer (M&S) p.l.c. is one of the largest retailers in the United Kingdom with a selling space of 12.5 million square feet, was established in 1884 as ‘Penny bazaar’. M&S sells clothing, food, footwear, gifts and home furnishings in its 760 stores around the world. The company’s wholly own and franchise stores operates in Europe, Hong Kong, Far East, Australia, Middle East, the Bahamas and Bermuda making a total of 34 countries.

“Marketing strategies can have a broad impact on the business in terms of instilling a marketing orientation among all those in the firm: the way of thinking or philosophy of the whole organization. However, marketing strategies can alternatively be seen as dealing only with the development of competitive advantages directly associated with the marketing function such as customer loyalty and distribution channel control. In the latter case, the domain is sometimes even further restricted by sole attention to the various element of the marketing mix rather than the more general issues of customer and channel relationships. There are two key

It is observed that Argos is the best known and the most reputable retail brand of the UK that offers a unique blend of convenience, value, and choice to the customers. All of these features have also played an inevitable and indispensable role in making Argos, a famous general merchandise retailer of the UK. It has been recognised that the leading retailing company provides customers with the list of approximately 18,000 product lines that can be accessible across all delivery channels. By reinvesting supply chain and buying efficiencies in lower product prices, Argos commits to deliver utmost value to the consumers and to improve its profitability. During the financial year of 2012, the total sale of Argos was found to be around £3.9 billion (Home Retail Group, 2014, p. 6).

     This report will show how Sainsburys have used performance management to increase their ability to provide a quality service and gain a competitive advantage, it will also show how systems have been implemented to achieve this and what Sainsburys have changed in recent years to achieve the competitive advantage it was looking for, The main area Sainsburys have changed is there Supply chain which had a cost gap of around £60 million. It will also look at how the operations functions carried out by Sainsburys can be linked in with other areas of the business like Finance, Human Resource Management and Marketing. The main contents of this report will

Even though M&S undertakes social responsibility and tries to gain focus of people,distant community will have very low interest and low power on M&S’s operations and industry bodies like British Retail Association and Confederation of British industry might have very low interest and low power.

Marketing plays the most important role for the success of a business. In this chapter, the business’ marketing objectives are laid out together with the plans or actions that will be needed to achieve these objectives. Furthermore, this chapter includes the profile of the respondents which aided the researchers to create this part of the feasibility study.