Marks and Spencer Strategies

The apparel industry is full of different companies, which operate in the industry. There is a plethora of competitors of Next plc. However, there are three main competitors for Next Plc that should be considered. They are M&S, TopShop, Boohoo, French Connection, Zara and H&M.

*Corporate structure & effective information management systems facilitated communication, as did close relationships with suppliers

Marketing and promotion: The aggressive marketing and promotion is strength to the company from several years. It has implemented many successful advertising and promotional strategies over the time which includes new format of UK stores “Brighter look”, “Your M&S” slogan, “Quality worth every penny” etc.

This study will examine Marks & Spencer, a retailer in the United Kingdom and will utilize the 8-Step approach of Kotter in addressing organizational change. Marks & Spencer has more than 375 stores and 11 million shoppers each week and employs 66,000 workers. The company is one of High Street's best known companies however, Marks & Spencer, for a long time unchallenged, has undergone a chain of management and corporate structure changes due a decline in their sales. (IBM Ltd. 2005)

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

Moving ahead,in order to get the idea about company’s internal environment and its capacity to survive and prosper in the market(Strategic capability), I analysed the resources and competencies(Appendix 3) ,the value chain (Appendix 3),the Cultural Web(Appendix 5). To find out the influence of stakeholders on the company I applied Power/Interest to the company and finally analysis of strengths,weaknesses ,opportunities and threats to the company(SWOT Analysis-Appendix 7) provide with clear idea about the strategic position of M&S.

Marks and Spencer has many external forces that affect the company. These are known as macro environmental factors. There are six of these forces, Political, Economic, Sociological, Technological, Legal and Environmental factors. These external factors affect the types of products/services Marks and Spencer offers, the nature of its market positioning and strategies, there relationship with their customers and their suppliers. These external factors allow Marks and Spencer to develop:

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.

Over the last 129 years M&S has grown from a single market stall to become an international multi-channel retailer. They now operate in over 50 territories worldwide and employ almost 82,000 people. Remaining true to their founding values of Quality, Value, Service, Innovation and Trust, we work hard to ensure our

Marks & Spencer is a British retailer with over 800 stores in more than 30 countries around the world. It is the largest clothing retailer in the UK, aswell as being a food retailer. Most of it’s domestic stores sell both clothing & food, and since the year 2000 Marks & Spencer have started to expand into other ranges

* Marks and Spencer currently has 703 stores in the UK with a further 390 stores in 44 countries worldwide (planned space growth of 3% per year until 2015/16). Employs 78,000 people with 21m customers per week in the UK.

Marks and Spencer Company is one of the biggest retailers in UK, which it has known by providing the finest qualities of goods and services including clothing, home product, foods and groceries. In currently, M&S Company operates 852 UK stores, 480 international stores and e-commerce platform includes approximately 83,069 employees, while M&S Company is one of the UK’s leading market positions in Menswear, Women-wear and Lingerie products (Mark and Spencer 2016.

Marks and Spencer founded in the late 1800’s by Michael Marks and Tom Spencer started out as open stalls all over Britain which grew into one of the largest and most popular retailers in the UK, ‘in 2010 they had 885 stores’. Marks and Spencers gained their reputation in the early 1980s when they adopted a policy of selling only British made clothing and food and started selling under the brand of St. Michael. Also their returns policy which gave cash returns to customers no matter when the bought the item made them popular. Marks and Spencer continued grow steadily and the profitability of the company peaked in 1998 when it became the first British retailer to make profits of £1 billion. However shortly after this the company saw a decline in profits and fell into a bit of financial trouble. With change and the introduction of a number of key CEO’s the company recovered and won back the

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.

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