Marks And Spencer Management Strategy

There are many social factors that affect Marks and Spencer such as level of education, lifestyle, mobility of population and income distribution. To keep up with the social affect Marks and Spencer has now a shop online selling its food, clothing and any other product they would have in stores. This is part of their plan to become a multi-channel retailer. It is obvious to us all that the real factor is to keep up with its competitive market such as Dunnes Stores. Marks and Spencer appeal to different markets in terms of social class and other demographics. Also to keep up with the social change Marks and Spencer bought their clothes range up to date to keep up with latest trends and to keep their customers interested. Consumer purchases are influenced by many factors like cultural, social, and personal. Marks and Spencer cannot control these factors but they must take them into account, which they have done as they are a well-positioned and a competitive player in their market.

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.

Marks and Spencer plc is a UK-based company. The business is known best as a retailer. There are over 622 Marks & Spencer stores throughout the UK that sell clothing, food and household goods. The core of its retailing business is clothing, particularly women's.

Marks and Spencer is one of the largest retailers in the United Kingdom, and is also known as a major retailer selling diverse product ranges under their own exclusive brand in more than thirty countries. Customer confidence in the Marks and Spencer brand remains second to none. According to recent research undertaken by the Company, it shows that, in clothing, Mark and Spencer has a clear lead over all its major competitors in the key areas of fit, quality, trust, breadth of range and customer service.

Marks and Spenser plc (M&S) is a one of the UK’s leading retailer of clothing, food and financial services. M&S was founded in 1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas Spenser in Leeds. M&S's profits peaked in financial year 1997/1998 with an annual turnover in excess of £ 8 billion and profit before tax of £ 1155 million. Following years its traditional way of doing business have come under pressure of changing environment. A leading worldwide retailer has become uncompetitive in the market industry internationally, especially in the UK. In response to that M&S conducted the strategic review to build on the strengths of M&S and exploit new growth opportunities. The changes helped to recover some of its market share and profit. By 2013

M&S's major competitor, Tesco, has managed to reap profits through their price-cutting strategies coupled with increasing non-food sales. Price is the most significant element of market positioning. Tesco is known for its aggressive discounting whereas M&S belongs to a higher priced group of retailers1. M&S emphasizes on quality rather than price-reduction. However, the retail sector in the UK appears to be moving in favour of low pricing approach.

This assignment will focus on identifying the mission, values and key objectives of Marks and Spencer PLC and also access the influences of three of their stakeholders. It will also explain the responsibilities of the organisation and the strategies employed to meet them, overall showing a general understanding of the purpose of business of Marks and Spencer.

The area of law covered in this case includes the intention to create legal relationship and implied contract between two parties. The issue of estoppel relating to conventional basis for both parties was also included.

Marks and Spencer is an international multi-channel retailer that has been running for 129 years. It now operates in “over 50 territories worldwide” and employs “almost 82,000 people”, (Marks and Spencer plc, 2013). It’s dependence on its origin country; the UK is progressively being reduced due to its international focus. M&S’ UK turnover consists of 54% food and 46% general merchandise, including home ware, clothing, lingerie etc. It is currently growing its e-commerce and has expanded to the finance business with its M&S Bank branch.

In this report as a new marketing manager, I have research about Marks and Spencer. I am going to explain the marketing strategy and planning principles. Marks and Spencer is now one of the UK 's leading retailers of clothing, food, home products and financial services. Marks and Spencer has a wide product range and it is dealing in home and furniture, food and wine, flower and gifts, technology, latest fashion and accessories for men, women and kids. More than 21 million people visit Marks and Spencer stores each week.

The company we have chosen for this assignment is “Marks and Spencer” as an “M&S”. It is one of the major British multinational retailer companies. Michael Marks opened a small stall at Kirkgate Market in Leeds in 1884, which was known by “Penny Bazar”. But soon Penny Bazar turned into M&S in the year 1894, after Michael Marks move into partnership with Tom Spencer. The company is now specialist in selling luxury food items, home products, beauty products and range of clothing. However, their iconic product was their first bra in 1926, which was a epic for them. Over a 130 years period of time it has been grown from a small stall to an international multi-channel retailer. Now they operate in more than 50 countries worldwide

Marks & Spencer is one of the best well-known British department stores. It was founded by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in 1884 (M&S, 2014). It started as a market stall at Kirkgate Market in Leeds. Nowadays, M&S has transformed to an international multi-channel retailer with 798 stores in UK and 455 international stores (M&S, 2014). According to its annual report this year, it has earned a total revenue of £10.3 billions over the last year. (M&S, 2014)

Marks and Spencer has a more than 100 years of history, it was started in 1893 by two person Marks and Spencer. The principal on which is founded was quality, service, innovation, values and trust (Adams 2013). According to annual report of M&S (2014), M&S

The strategic management of the supply chain does not consist of introducing innovations in order just to innovate. It is about creating a configuration that will make the strategic objectives progress. According to Slack et al. (2004, p.67) an « operations strategy concerns the pattern of strategic choices and actions that set the purpose, objectives and activities of operations ». According to Hayes (2005), efficient operations strategies need to be consistent and contribute to competitive advantage. The process of operations strategy covers the activities and dynamics of strategy elaboration and implementation (Swink and Way, 1995), whereas the content of operations strategy consists of the particular decisions regarding competitive priorities, objectives, and action plans that specify the operation 's strategic direction.Several authors gave their definition of operations strategy; four interrelated perspectives then emerged. The top-down approach is « what the business wants operations to do » and the bottom-up perspective represent « what day-to-day experience should do ». Top-down strategy can be distinguished from a bottom-up strategy in terms of two aspects: the initiative 's origin and the sequence of events amongst purposes, actions, and results. Top-down strategy is triggered by top management 's aims and manifests in the performance outcomes of stipulated actions. Bottom-up strategy is initiated by lower managers’ actions realizing their own interpretations

Operations management is the design operations and improvement of systems that create and deliver a company’s products and services. In other words, “is the process of taking input such as raw material and component and turning it in to out put by adding values” (Shaikh, 2010). Any activity that relates to the management of the entire business process that produces goods and services falls into the operations category. Competition among today’s organizations has become immense and is getting tougher and tougher day by day since more new companies are starting businesses in the same industry. Whether they are from the manufacturing sector or service sector, the need for cutting the unnecessary costs, achieving maximum efficiency, and implementing operations management strategies is increasing with the passage of time. Therefore, more focus is being laid on Supply Chain Management these days by the businesses in order to set up