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Marks and Spencer - Performance and Position

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A
Project Report on the Analysis of the
Performance and Position of

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Table of Contents
Chapter Page No.
1. Introduction
2. History
3. Financial Performance
4. Social and environmental policy
5. Plan A
6. Marketing
7. A New Store Format
8. Products
9. Technology
10. Head Office Locations
11. Stores
12. Store Formats
13. Senior Management
14. References

1. Introduction

Marks & Spencer (M&S) is a major British retailer, with over 840 stores in more than 30 countries around the world, over 600 domestic and 285 international.[1][2] It is the largest clothing retailer in the United Kingdom, as well as being a food retailer, and as of 2008, the 43rd …show more content…

The rising cost of using British suppliers was also a burden, as rival retailers increasingly imported their goods from low-cost countries, but M&S's belated switch to overseas suppliers undermined a core part of its appeal to the public. Another factor was the company's refusal until 2000 to accept any credit cards except its own store card.[13] In addition, as an ageing and famously bureaucratic company, it was losing touch with potential younger customers, who were reluctant to shop with it. At the same time Greenbury, who had dominated the company, had his attention diverted by the Prime Minister's committee on directors' pay.
These factors combined to plunge M&S into a sudden slump, which took the company, its shareholders, who included hundreds of thousands of small investors, and nearly all retail analysts and business journalists, by surprise. The company's share price fell by more than two thirds, and its profits fell from more than a billion pounds in 1997 and 1998 to £145 million in the year ended 31 March 2001.[14]

Since the late 1990s M&S has experienced serious boardroom instability and has made a number of attempts to revive its business, with only partial success. By 1999, Online Shopping was brought in, and the company grew with new sales of fashion clothing. In 2001, with changes in its business focus such as taking credit cards, the introduction of the

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