Impact of Digital Technologies and Innovations on Organisational Development: A Case Study of Marks and Spencer

This article discusses the impact of digital technologies and innovations on organisational development using Marks and Spencer as a case study. It evaluates the major innovations and digital technologies used by the company, assesses their impact on organisational development, and examines their pros and cons.

Digital portfolio

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
Brief description of organization and also identify and evaluate major innovations and digital
technologies that they are using.............................................................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
Assess how these digital technologies and innovations affect organisational development.
Examine the pros and cons of these technologies..................................................................5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................8
Discuss how innovation and digital technologies impact on data and knowledge management
in process of decision making in organisation.......................................................................8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Digital portfolio is a process of collecting electronic evidence which is managed and
assembles by people on web. It mainly includes electronic files, multimedia, hyperlinks, input
text and blog entries. Digital portfolio covers different types of contents such as spreadsheets,
photographs, illustrations, text and web material. The main purpose of digital portfolio is
developing the soft skills so that people can articulate the experience and also present them in an
effective and efficient manner (Temerbekova and Dzhanabilova, 2018). Digital portfolio presents
evidence of various skills and abilities. By creating digital portfolio, company can increase
visibility and online presence in market. They also show more than just resume and also create
professional way to showcase their work. The project is based on digital portfolio in which
evaluation of innovation and digital technologies are determined by identifying their pros and
cons. The chosen organisation for accomplishing this project is Marks and Spencer.
TASK 1
Brief description of organization and also identify and evaluate major innovations and digital
technologies that they are using
Marks and Spencer group is a great British multinational retailer with headquarters in
London, UK. It specializes in retail clothing, footwear, gifts, home furnishings, and food, with
many of these items sold under M&S's private-label St Michael brand. Marks and spencer is
listed on the London Stock exchange and is constituent of FTSE 250 Index, which was been in
the FTSE 100 Index from its creation until 2019. Marks and spencer started as a stall in 1884 in
the market place of Leeds, Yorkshire. The company was founded by Michael Marks and Thomas
Spencer. Marks and spencer currently own 959 stores across UK which includes 615 stores
which only sell food products and, through its television advertising, it asserts the exclusive
nature and luxury of its food and beverages. The company also owns and operates nearly 100
additional Marks & Spencer stores in Europe, Hong Kong, and Canada, and franchises 85 Marks
& Spencer stores in Europe, the Far East, Australia, the Middle East, the Bahamas, and
Bermuda. Marks and Spencer also own the Brooks Brothers chain of men's clothing stores,
which consists of more than 170 units in the United States and Japan, and the 20-store, New
Jersey-based Kings Super Markets grocery store chain. The fast-growing Marks and Spencer
Financial Services unit offers its customers credit cards, personal loans, life insurance, and

savings, investment, and pension plans. About 17 percent of Marks and Spencer's revenues are
generated outside the United States. Other than this it also offers an online food delivery service
with the help of a joint venture with Ocado. In 1998, the company became the first British
retailer to achieve a pre-tax profit of over £1 billion, although subsequently it went into a sudden
slump, which took the company and its stakeholders by surprise. In November 2009, it was
announced that Marc Bolland, formerly of Morrisons, would take over as chief executive from
executive chairman Sir Stuart Rose in early 2010; Rose remained executive chairman until July
2010 and then chairman until January 2011, when he was replaced by Robert Swannell. In recent
years, its clothing sales have reduced whilst food sales have increased after axing the St.
Michael moniker for its own brand. The company also started to sell branded goods such
as Kellogg's Corn Flakes in November 2008. On 22 May 2018, it was confirmed that over 100
stores will beshut down by 2022 in a "radical" plan. Whether more stores would close was yet to
be confirmed. On 18 August 2020, the company stated that they were to cut 7,000 jobs over the
next three months owing to the coronavirus pandemic. On 26 May 2021, Marks and Spencer
announced plans to close another 30 shops over the next 10 years as part of its turnaround plan.
Technology and Innovation implemented by Marks and Spencer
Marks and Spencer have adopted various digital technologies and innovation in order to
enhance their overall presence and create strong brand awareness in market. By implementing
this technology company improves their customer base and also boosts their sales. The brand
implements artificial technology, machine learning, pay and go technology, Google cloud and
many other technology in order to attract more and more customers towards the brand
(Pospisilova, 2018). Recently, In order to engage more customers online Marks & Spencer uses
Google Cloud speech recognition to automate calls to stores, increase personalization, and better
serve its customers through digitally enabled contact centers which help the company to
Improves efficiency by automating 13 in-store switchboards in the UK and Ireland and migrating
stock availability calls to central M&S contact center, it also reduces store call volume by 50%
by routing more than 7 million calls through Dialogflow, under Contact Center AI and it enables
call center staff to program seasonal event-related vocabulary directly into Dialogflow to handle
specific customer queries. The company is aiming to bring one third of the company online by
2022.

The company previously was using switchboards in 13 different stores all across the UK
and Ireland (UKI), handling up to nine million calls in a year. But as its retail offering evolved
across multiple channels, it was getting increasingly difficult for the company to quickly and
effectively answer customer service requests using an outdated switchboard model. Customers
might call in to order an outfit they had seen in a store, to inquire about returning a dress they
bought online, or to recover a lost umbrella in a food hall (Panyukova, 2020). Each of the query
from customer required a different routing response from staff, and if the company didn’t act
soon, they knew that the cost of managing the increase in call volume would lead to a significant
cost impact, which was not good. So, the company decided it was time to make a technological
advancement to meet customers’ expectations in the new, omnichannel retail environment.
Making the technological changes will lead to the effective handling of customer queries, and
will result in the better customer service experience. The pay and go technology of company
helps in improving the business performance and also saves the time of consumers.
TASK 2
Assess how these digital technologies and innovations affect organisational development.
Examine the pros and cons of these technologies
The digital technology helps in improving the performance and productivity of business.
Through implementing advanced digital technology, organization can provide better customer
experience and also sustain in market for long run. Marks and Spencer implements various
digital technologies such as Google cloud results, Artificial intelligence technology, machine
learning, pay and go technology, clothes fitting technology and also launches its online operation
in various markets. By using these technologies and innovation, the organisational development
of Marks and Spencer increases due to which they can attract large number of people towards the
brand. The innovation in company can help in anticipating the market change quickly and also
they can gain more opportunities in market (Tullius, 2021). It also helps company to differentiate
themselves from competitors and gain competitive advantage in market.
It is important for company to focus on innovation and technology as it helps in saving
time, money and resources. Marks and Spencer can also gain advantage over other organisation
which is stuck in their system. Technology and innovation helps in increasing the productivity of
business and also offer customers new and innovative products and services that helps in

fulfilling their need and desire. It is important for company to focus on implementing the
advanced and trendy technology that boost the sale and productivity of business (Isikli and et. al.,
2018). The better goods and services also helps in improving the standards of living of people
due to which company can attract more and more people towards the brand. Customers
generally get attracted with the new technology so it is important to remain trendy with the
fashion as it increases the customer base and also company can gain competitive advantage in
market as the products which are offered to customers are of high quality with lower cost. Marks
and Spencer has implemented pay and go technology in their store so that they can prevent
people from spread of disease. As, customers face difficulty to stay in long line and wait for their
chance to pay the bill. But through pay and go technology, people can enable their transaction
and pay in less than 40 seconds (Hartnell-Young, 2021). This technology also helps in improving
the customer service in store as well as it deployment will enable employees to provide improved
service and slash queuing time. The brand has also invested in cloth fitting technology in order to
reduce returns and improve the sale of business. Marks and Spencer has invested in this
technology to improve its digital capabilities so that they can achieve the goals and objective of
business in effective and efficient manner. Company also comes in joint venture with accelerator
founder’s factory that focuses on growing start-ups and also focuses on new technologies.
Due to pandemic, organization has launched online operation in market for recovering
their loss and improving its sale. The COVID 19 hit the performance and productivity of
business due to which company is facing loss. Through online operation, company can reach to
large number of target customers and also enhance their sale and profitability (Nambisan, 2017).
The innovation and technology also helps in improving staff retention due to which they remain
with the company for long run. It also creates innovative environment in workplace so that
employees can work productively and also contribute their best efforts in improving the business
performance. Organization can also use digital technologies for effective marketing so that they
can promote products and services to consumers and also enhance their brand awareness in
market. Marks and Spencer have strong digital presence on social media platforms with large
number of followers and active users. They have presence on Facebook and Twitter on which
they post content on regularly basis and also provide relevant information about the products and
services to consumers. The effective technology and innovation helps in building the value of
brand also increases the turnover of business (Tabrizi and et. al., 2019). If they fail to implement

new technology and bring innovation, they gain lose market share to competitors, lose key staff,
going out of business and also experience steadily reducing profits and margin.
Artificial intelligence technology helps in improving the efficiency and productivity of
business due to which company generate more and more income. It also helps in enhancing the
speed of business and provides better customer service. Artificial technology in Marks and
Spencer provide better quality of services and also reduce human errors due to which they save
wastage of goods and services (Vlachokyriakos and et. al., 2016). Through artificial intelligence,
organization can also attract talented employees and creates strong management that helps in
improving the performance and growth of business. But there are some disadvantages of
implementing artificial intelligence technology as it requires huge cost and also company can’t
replace human. Due to AI technology there is a risk of unemployment and it fails to bring
creativity within workplace.
Machine learning is another technology which is implemented by Marks and Spencer in
order to improve their productivity and performance of business. The brand implements this
technology as it helps in simplifying the product marketing and also assists in accurate sales
forecasting due to which they can improve their sale and profitability (Madon and Krishna, eds.,
2018). It also helps in simplifies time intensive documentation in data entry and easily span
detection. Machine learning helps in improving precision of financial rules and models. It also
helps in predicating consumer purchasing habits, popular products and market trends. There are
various disadvantages of machine learning which is faced by Marks and Spencer such as it
creates high errors and also takes time to predict the data of market. By implementing machine
learning, company need to train employees specifically for each narrow application. It also
requires lengthy offline training which requires huge investment (Cuffaro and et. al., 2020).
Cloth fitting technology helps in increasing the sale of business and also cut down the
returns due to which they can attract large number of people towards the brand and also create
digital avatars by using 3D technology. The main aim of this technology is to enable consumer to
identify clothing that best suits their size and shape and also it reduces the chances of products
that are being returned. It also helps in improving digital capabilities of company and also
turnaround schemes. There are many cons which are faced by organisation such as it requires
huge investment and also it sometime creates disappointment among consumers as they face
difficulty in terms of sizing and fitting.

Pay and go technology is another tool which is used by Marks and Spencer in order to
attract large number of people. Due to COVID 19, people are facing various challenges for
purchasing the products and services. In order to improve the experience of customers, company
has used pay and go technology so that they can create safe environment for people and they can
easily pay for the products and services. It is one of the effective technology which saves the
time of people in this busy schedule. But this technology creates frustration and confusion
among audience and also decreases their morale as customers who have e-payment apps in their
mobile phone only they can use this technology. One of the biggest disadvantages of this
technology is that customers have security concern which influence the performance of pay and
go technology.
Google cloud is other technology which is used by Marks and Spencer for personalizing the
customer service. They focus on implementing Google cloud speech recognition to increase
personalization, automate calls to stores and better serve its consumers through digitally enabled
contact centers. It is the technology which easily focuses on latest functionalities, ensures smooth
collaboration and also reduces breached. But it also has some cons which influence the
performance and productivity of business such as it has fewer features and less global data
centers.
TASK 3
Discuss how innovation and digital technologies impact on data and knowledge management in
process of decision making in organisation
Innovation and digital technology creates a huge impact on data and knowledge
management in process of decision making. Through implementing various digital technologies
in workplace, company have to focus on maintain large number of data and secure it privately
without breaching the information. The digital technology helps in collecting the data of
customers due to which company can track and diagnose issue of customers and improve their
experience within workplace (Miller, 2020). Innovation and digital technology also creates an
impact on knowledge management as for implementing new digital technology company
requires great knowledge and also provide training and development opportunity to staff so that
they can adopt the technology in effective and smooth manner. It also enables management of
created knowledge bases, dissemination of knowledge and extract knowledge from database.

Organization requires adequate knowledge of the technology and innovation which they are
implementing so that they can enhance their customer base and provide better goods and services
to people (Molinillo and Japutra, 2017).
The main objective of digital technologies in knowledge management is to improve
knowledge access, recognize knowledge as intellectual capital, create repository and also
enhance knowledge environment so that employees can learn something new and different. The
knowledge management helps in developing the environment which enhance the knowledge and
skills of staff due to which they give productive outcomes in achieving the goals and objective of
business. The important technology which is sued by Marks and Spencer in knowledge
management is artificial intelligence (Murphie and Potts, 2017). This technology is used for
knowledge acquisition and case based reasoning system, computer based simulations, decision
support system and also enterprise resource planning system. Knowledge management helps in
improving the efficiency of company due to which they can make effective decision and also
employees can gain access to expertise knowledge and also organization can gain smarter
workforce within workplace. The innovation and digital technology plays an important role in
changing the corporate culture to knowledge sharing environment by making collaboration and
knowledge sharing among employees. It also helps in supporting knowledge management
process like process of conversion, utilization, application and sharing. If the organization has
weak digital technologies tools and innovation it affects the knowledge management process.
The main motive of digital technology and tools is to enhance business intelligence and
collaboration capabilities within workplace so that company can achieve competitive advantage
and improve their business performance.
In order to measure the impact of knowledge management, Marks and Spencer have to
ask questions from employees per months and also implement the best practices which are
provided by employees. The data and knowledge management process is essential for company
as it helps in solving problem, company can make effective decision, increase flexibility and also
avoid burnouts. Knowledge management also creates an impact on the job satisfaction of
employees due to which they contribute productive output in achieving the target of company.
There are various approaches of knowledge management such as personalization, social
networking and codification. These approaches have strong influence on work performance and
innovation (Ritz, Wolf and McQuitty, 2019). It also helps in improving the performance of brand

by enhancing sale, creating learning opportunities, customer satisfaction and offering innovative
products and services to consumers.
CONCLUSION
It is being concluded from the above information that digital technology and innovation
plays an important role in improving the brand image and value of company in market. It is
necessary for company to focus on adopting right digital technology that helps in enhancing the
sale and profitability of business. Through using digital portfolio, an individual can gain the
opportunity to reflect on goals, projects and also track the growth of business and individual
performance for long time.

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