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

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.