Digital Skills: Virtual Reality Technology in Marks and Spencer Organization

DIGITAL SKILLS
RESEARCH METHODS
PROJECT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
Background of Marks and Spencer organization.........................................................................1
Challenges faced by organization before introduction of modern technology............................3
Insights to the modern technology introduced.............................................................................6
The impact of the technology introduced....................................................................................7
Lessons that can be drawn from the case study...............................................................................7
REREFENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Digital literacy can be defined as a kind of functional skills that are required for operating
and communicating new and advance technology. Today it has become important for individuals
to learn digital literacy skills so that they can easily use, handle and communicate using advance
digital technologies, find and access digital content as per their need and requirement so that one
can develop their own understanding in an appropriate manner (McDougall, Readman and
Wilkinson, 2018). Digital literacy skills are important today as it makes it much easier for
individual to learn and understand new and advance digital technologies that are being used by
organizations for different purposes and ways in which those technologies have helped them in
gaining competitive advantage, boost their sales and provide many other different kinds of
advantages. Advance modern technologies have provided various kinds of advantages to the
organization. In fact, today adaptation of these technologies has become important for
organizations in order to remain competitive within the market in which they operate. This
presentation will lay emphasis upon Marks and Spencer organization, modern technology used
by M&S, challenges faced by them before introduction of modern technology, insight of
technology, impact of technology and lessons learnt from it. Modern technology focused upon in
this presentation is Virtual reality. It is a stimulated experience that can either be similar or
different from real world experience. This technology is used in organizations for different
purposes such as for entertainment purpose, educating clients, enhance their shopping experience
and for many other purposes.
MAIN BODY
Background of Marks and Spencer organization
Marks and Spencer or M&S is a major British retail sector multinational organization that
operates globally. M&S was established in 1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer. Its
main headquarter is in London, England. They sell different kinds of products but are specialized
in selling products like cloths, home products and food products. most of these products are
developed by Marks and Spencer on its own. They have their stores in more than 57 countries all
over the world and have approximately 1463 stores globally. Out of these 1463 stores more than
900 stores are in UK itself in which 600 stores only sell food products. They are one of the
largest UK’s clothing retailers. They are market leaders in UK especially in terms of
Womenswear and Menswear clothing items. they have more than 80,000 employees working for
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them. Other than this they also have a subsidiary i.e. M&S Bank which is owned by HSBC bank
since 2004. M&S was established by partnership of Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer and
started their own business in 1884 (Toms and Zhang, 2016). In 1901 they opened their own stall
in centre aisle famous Penny Bazaar. Within 20 years they opened many stalls in various
locations of North West of England. Till early 20th century they made a reputation of selling
British made goods and after some times they established relationship with British manufactures
and started selling their cloths under St Michael Brand name. M&S is a public limited company
which is listed on London stock Exchange and is also a constitute of FTSE 250 Index and
previously in FTSE 100 Index from its creation until 2019. In clothing sector their market share
in UK is 11 percent in UK.
Marks and Spencer have always been slow in adopting new and advance technologies
due to which from time to time they had to face issues. Such as in 2001 usage of credit cards had
started but they did not accept credit cards for payment. As a result, their sales declined and they
faced huge financial loss. They faced decline in overall profit by more than 30 percent. So as a
result of this loss they had started accepting credit cards for payment which further helped them
to enhance their sales and recover profit till a certain extent. But today slowly they had started
adopting advance technologies for enhancement of their slae, profit and revenue. In fact, they
have included some of these advance technologies within their business model as well. they nave
set a research and development department where they spend some amount upon advance
technologies for transforming M&S into digital first retailers (Scott and Walker, 2017). They
also sell their products online and provide free home delivery to their customers as well in order
to enhance their shopping experience. They are also focusing upon adopting various other kinds
of modern technologies within their physical retail stores which is not only helping them to
increase their sales but is also helping them to enhance their overall customer base. For example:
Marks and Spencer are focusing upon adopting artificial intelligence technology within their
stores in order to enhance their customer experience. It is one of the main initiatives taken by
them for driving value of their customers experience of shopping with Marks and Spencer.
Due to advancement in technology it has become a compulsion for organizations to adopt
advance and new digital technology within business. In order to sustain within the marketing
environment in which Marks and Spencer operates they need to focus upon adopting new and
advance digital technology within their business. Marks and Spencer already have a negative
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