Managing Information and Technology: A Case Study of Matalan Retail Limited

MANAGING
INFORMATION AND
TECHNOLOGY

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................3
Porter's five force Analysis of Matalan..............................................................................5
Porter value chain analysis of Matalan...............................................................................7
Support activities in Porter's Value Chain..........................................................................9
Key value adding activities................................................................................................9
Reflection and recommendation.......................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Information technology is explained as the use of computer systems in the in order to
collect, store, process, analyse and distribution of information. The role of Information
technology is most important for organizations in current time. Information Technology can
be used in organization in different manner (Lloyd, 2017). Information technology can help
organization to managing different type of information, Monitoring on organization operation
and preparing reports for the collected data. This report is providing brief of Matalan Retail
Limited. Matalan Retail Limited is the Matalan Retail Limited is a British fashion and home
ware retailer based company in United Kingdom. Headquarter of the company is in Knowsley.
It was established in year 1985 by Mr Jason Hargreaves in Preston, England, United Kingdom.
In this report brief information to the products and services of Matalan Retail Limited
will be provided including the background information of Company. Competitive environment
for the Matalan Retail Limited will be analysed in the report using Porter Five Forces model.
Proper justification for the market competitor evaluation also will be provided in the study.
The Inbound logistic and outbound logistic also will be discussed in study. The two different
support activities related to organization will be discussed for the Porter's value chain model.
Different value adding activities will be discussed in report. Detailed analysis of Porter Five
force analysis and Porter Value Chain will be mentioned in study (Lewis, 2017). Different
innovative and creative ideas will be discussed in study that can be used by the organization to
implement Information Technology in organization.
The growth of Matalan Retail Limited much faster in UK. It was established in year 1985
and in year 1995 they have opened 50 stores in UK. This company is subsidiary of Missouri
Topco Limited. Missouri Topco Limited is a holding company that is guernsey based
company and controlled by Hargreaves Family. This company was floated on London Stock
Exchange in 1998 but later in 2006 but it was again taken privately by Hargreaves family.

This company was intended to sold by its owners but failed to find buyer and later this
remained unsold. At present company have 230 stores in UK and 32 stores as Franchise in
Europe and Middle East and have employed around 13000 employees. The growth of
Matalan is because of variety of channels and Matalan understand trends of consumers and
their changing behaviour. This has led Matalan to sell its products through variety of channels.
Their omni channel strategy is very effective, and they use both online and offline channels for
distribution of its products. This is organization is operating at limited place but its success is
most in UK and through its online channel Matalan have managed to grow by more than 30%.
This growth boosted sales by 3.8% and pre-tax profit by 50%. Through this growth Matalan
ave managed to outperform its competitors and some big retail companies operating in UK.
Some competitors of Matalan are Boden, La Redoute, New Look and Asos. along with it has
to compete with other big multinationals like Marks and Spenser and Sainsbury's.
Porter's five force Analysis of Matalan
Threat of new entrants-
The economies of scale is not easy to achieve in the industry of retail. Companies such
as Matalan has an advantage of cost as they are producing in large quantities. Companies who
are entering new into the market has to face high cost of production. This reduces the threat of
new entrants in the market. The factor of differentiation of product is high as firms in the
industry sells products which are differentiated according to the demand made by consumers.
This industry also requires high level of advertising and services of customers. The
requirement of capital in this industry is high which makes it difficult for the new companies
to enter into the market. Also high level of expenses are involved in this industry such as
research and development so that company can remain updated with the new trends. There are
lot of legal regulations that the company needs to follow before they enter into the market.
These aspects makes it difficult for new companies to join the market and the level of threat is
reduced (Bytheway, Cronje and Branch, 2017).
Bargaining Power of Suppliers-
There are too many suppliers in the industry of retail which states that they do not have
control over the prices. The cost of switching is low and the products which are offered by the
suppliers are standardized instead of differentiated which gives the control to Matalan. They
do not have the power to create a threat which is credible which stops the company from