Marks and Spencer

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

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 Group (M&S) is the premier retailer in clothing, foods and home ware within the United Kingdom. The company’s commitment to quality, value, service, innovation and trust is a key contributor to their success as a high street retailer in the UK. Their current core UK operations centre around three divisions, food, general merchandise (including clothing and home ware), and the financial services industry. Therefore Tesco plc is the prime UK retailer to analyse and compare growth, financial performance and the financial status of M&S Plc in line with other competitors within the same industry.

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

It is very crucial for every business to have a strong supply chain network in order to satisfy its customers before the competitors do. M&S though being one of the UK’s largest retailers is criticised by its Finance

This report will demonstrate, apply and evaluate knowledge and understanding of key managerial disciplines of the chosen high street retailer, Marks and Spencer, in different real-world global contexts. According to the report by Deloitte, the retail industry is undergoing immense changes and faces a tough competitive

The company’s brand image in clothing and increasing business in food sector together with successful marketing strategies will ensure sustainability of business. M&S is investing in Multi-channel store (online stores) to increase its capabilities in this field which will be fruitful for the company in future as it already showed quit improvement in online sales. Further, the company’s commitment

I am looking at Topshop for this report. Topshop is a very large British fashion store for young women selling fashion clothes, shoes and accessories. There are Topshop stores throughout the UK. The flagship store in London Oxford Street is the biggest fashion store in Europe. Topshop is part of the Arcadia group which owns other fashion stores such as Miss Selfridge and Warehouse. Topshop mainly sells its own brand products but in larger stores it has concessions of other more expensive similar clothes. As well as selling Topshop clothes in Topshop store, they have concessions in large department stores such as Selfridges. They also have a website where you can buy a lot of the Topshop range including shoes and clothes for

According to Turban and King (2003), internet technology renders retailers an additional channel for branding, transactions and customer relationship management, the adaptation of which may drive down retailers’ transaction costs, and ensuring faster and higher quality of customer interactions, resulting in enlarging the existing markets and consumer base. M&S realizes this and have tried to sell clothing via high street stores as well as via internet though they have experienced cost cutting, rationalisation and management changes in order to revive their business in recent years. Internet technology might enable sustainable competitive advantage, but problems remain on how to physically organize their online retail operations.

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:

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)

M&S accomplished the goal of merging its global outlets and in the process transforming them into well designed website that offers web based catalogs showcasing all of their product categories that are on sale. The website enables potential buyers to have detailed description of the product before purchasing. With more detailed description of the products, customers can make intelligent decisions before buying and be able to make payments via various payment channels like debit and credit cards.

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

Secondly, through the M&S.com website, it gives M&S flexibility to cater to customers’ changing shopping habits, whether they are shopping online via mobile, on a tablet, or at Shop Your Ways, and there over 7 million registered users. M&S.com produces £636.5m sales, 2% decreases than last year, this should be related to customers liked the enhanced functionality and cleaner look of the sit, as a consequence, when M&S updated its website, sales returned to growth in fourth quarter and it shows gradual improvement such as, weekly sit visits has obtained to £6.1m, 10.9% increased than last year, 22 new Shop Your Way Stores has be opened, and customer satisfaction rose by 18%. Thirdly, due to M&S is a international company, it has 480 wholly-owned, jointly-owned or franchised stores in 59 territories across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, 25 new stores were opened and 5 new territories were explored in the past year. In 2015, the international revenue is £1.1bn, it decreased by 5.7%, this condition should be of relevance to in a number of M&S franchise partners were impacted by political instability and local currency fluctuations which resulted in lower shipment in a geopolitically turbulent year. In other territories such as, the Middle East region, the macroeconomic situation has impacted consumer demand, but fortunately, these franchise partners have adapted to the challenging environment by managing their businesses prudently and ordering less stock. Finally, M&S

During the 1950’s when credit cards were first introduced to society they were used because they were convenient to have. People didn’t have to worry about running to the bank if they didn’t have enough money to make a purchase. Furthermore now there are really different reasons than before to have credit cards. In the American society luxuries have become a necessity and to keep up with the latest luxuries many of us turn to our credit cards (Zumello 2011). Stores caught on to all of this and they figured out that in order to keep their customers fidelity and have them come back even if they don’t have money they must issue credit cards for their customers. Department stores would reward you as long as you make your payments on time; however as soon as you miss one