Marks and Spencer Merger with Sainsbury Essay

Sainsburys is currently the second largest chain of supermarkets within the UK, with a current supermarket sector share of 16.9%. Sainsbury’s was founded in 1869 and today operates in over 1,200 supermarket and convenience stores, and has over 161,000 employees. We will be looking at a number of areas internally and externally and see how they are effectively or not effectively performing.

New man at M&S looks to reconquer overseas markets and win hearts in home wares – An article by Julia Finch, appeared in The Guardian on November 06, 2010.

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

Sainsbury’s have a long term goal to deliver their products and keep their customers happy. One of their objectives is to make life easier for their customers by offering products with good quality and service with a fair price. This also makes the customers happy and makes them want to shop

Sainsbury’s goal is to reflect they commitment to meeting customers’ needs; however, they want to shop food, clothing, general merchandise and services also they vision is to be trusted retailer where people love to work and shop. They strategy plan is to know they consumers better than anyone else, be there for them whenever they need them also offering great products and services at fair prices. They colleagues make the difference; they value makes them different.

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

J Sainsbury plc (Sainsbury) is a retail chain based in the UK. Sainsbury is engaged in grocery retailing through its supermarkets and convenience stores principally in the UK. The company operates its business through three divisions, namely, Retailing, Financial Services and Property Investment. Sainsbury serves its customers through a chain of 537 supermarkets and 335 convenience stores under the brand Sainsburys, and financial services via Sainsburys Bank. Sainsbury offers around 30,000 food and non-food products and services. The company is headquartered in London, the UK J Sainsbury plc Key Recent Developments Mar 11, 2010: Sainsbury launches first bakery college in the UK Mar 08, 2010: Sainsbury to add

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.

Opportunity- If Sainsbury were been able to transfer their brand into Egypt market, it would be the biggest opportunity in conducting their business as Egypt is perceived as a market

Management restructure that occurred in this year has lead M&S shares rise significantly. “M&S shares closed at 1.5% bigger at 424.2 pences”

This report provides a view on operations of SAINSBURY’S , the third largest supermarket chain across United Kingdom. SAINSBURY’S , in spite of being the longest standing retail chain has been facing stiff competition from rivals like TESCO , MORRISONS. The competitors seemed to have developed at a faster pace since SAINSBURY’S has been through a difficult time in recent years and TESCO is now twice the size in terms of turnover.

Marks & Spencer was once a top-of-the-line company in terms of its quality and selection. However, it is reported that the company has become" an out-of-date, uncompetitive blur on the UK stock market. The decline for Marks & Spencer began in the latter part of the 1990s and due to the pressure of a "changing economic demand causing Marks & Spencer to undergo continual business realignment"¦" (IBM, Ltd. 2005, p.1)

They had a long standing supply arrangement with Marks & Spencer and later with Sainsbury's.

The early 1990 's marked the beginning of a sea change in customer 's expectations with regard to good quality, healthy food. M&S image as a respectable retailer with its focus on providing a wide range of premium foods meant that the M&S brand, where food was concerned, became regarded as something of a luxury.