Business Strategies for Marks and Spencer

Technology is very important in the retail market. In order to grow your business, make their business more secure and complete with the competitors, Marks and Spencer has to move along with the new technology. To do this they must manage their brands carefully. Major brand marketers often spend huge amounts on

Therefore, Marks and Spencer now follow a flat organisational structure. This includes limited levels of management between administrative level and front-line employees. The structure is followed in organisation to encourage employees.

Marks & Spencer is a large company listed on various stock markets, which a widely spread operations in many countries. The size of operations of the company and high reputation in the

The internal environment consists of the inherent competencies of the firm and the structure of its internal systems and processes. It is imperative for the organization to conduct an internal analysis to

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.

This document/report throws light on the business environment of Marks and Spencers and the analysis of strategic position, strategic direction, success criteria and backed up by future recommendations for the company based on all the mentioned aspects. The frameworks used to analyse the company are:

It is defined as all the forces or conditions that are available within an environment that affects an organization and business. It is also known as controllable factors because business can control them. The internal environment deals with the management of resources like human resources, physical resources, technology, monetary resources and others that constitute the organization in order to implement or execute a strategy. Internal environment also includes culture and other intangible aspects like teamwork, coordination, efficiency level of employees, employee’s salaries and monitoring costs. The strategy for competition should also be in sync with the internal resources especially the internal environment.

Stakeholders like employees, owners, and executives within a company as well as the forces that impact the way they behave make up the internal environment. Such forces include the culture

In this term of our discussion we’re talking about business environment. It’s like an overview of the whole business environment. Simply environment of a business means the external forces including the business decisions. They can be forces of economic, social, political and technological factors.

Each organization requires different strategic planning, as there is no single strategic planning model that suits all organizations. Every organization has to develop model of strategic planning according to its own development, its nature of business and as per their own planning process. These models provide an extent of options on the basis of which different organizations might be able to select an approach and initiate to grow their own strategic planning process. Any organization might select to combine the models suitable to their planning process, for example, they can use a Basic model to recognize strategic issues and aims, and then they can select an issues-based model to develop approach to initiate the issues and grasp the

Marks and Spencer (M & S) was started by Michael Marks and later joint by a partner Tom Spencer in 1884. It is one of the largest British retailers that sold clothes, home furnishings, food, gifts etc. and was formerly known as St. Michael. It has markets in Europe, Far East, America and Asia. The company suffered a series of losses and a dip in the market share from a few years before the stepping down of the then CEO, Sir Richard Greenbury, in 1999. In 2001 the company underwent a drastic strategic change and the

The internal environment consists of the inherent competencies of the firm and the structure of its internal systems and processes. It is imperative for the organization to conduct an internal analysis

Organisations scan environmental information and use it for planning, decision making and control. Organisations transmit information to several internal and external agencies like govt., investors, trade unions and professional bodies. For any organization, the environment consists of the set of external conditions and forces that have the potential to influence the organization. In the case of Subway, for example, the environment contains its customers, its rivals such as McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken, social trends such as the shift in society toward healthier eating, political entities such as the US Congress, and many additional conditions and forces. It is useful to break the concept of the environment down into two components. The general environment (or macroenvironment) includes overall trends and events in society such as social

As the name suggests, “internal” business environment refers to internal factors and resources that affect the running of the business. This primarily includes the workforce where the employees play a vital role in affecting company’s performance. If a company has well trained or motivated employees, that company is likely to get good output from them. However, if the same company recruits unmotivated employees who do not perform well or dig in their heels when a new plan arrived, this will affect that company’s production levels and ultimately hinder its profitability. Another factor to consider is all the capabilities that a company possesses. The tool used to monitor them is the resource based

Internal environment includes factors that can be controlled by the company such as management, production, finance, accounting, supply of materials, marketing, public relations (PR), human resources, information systems, etc. Analyzing these factors helps businesses identify strengths, weaknesses, then finding out the appropriate strategy. Marketing strategies, marketing systems, marketing organization, marketing function and marketing productivity are included in the internal audit.