Marketing Sales and Negotiation Skills for Marks & Spencer

This report discusses the concept of marketing and its role in business management, with a focus on Marks & Spencer. It includes an analysis of the internal and external environment using PESTLE and SWOT frameworks, as well as an evaluation of the marketing mix. The report also covers sales and negotiation skills using Gibb's Reflective Cycle, with recommendations for growth and achieving objectives.

Marketing sales and
Negotiation skills

Table of Contents
Executive summary..........................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................4
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................8
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

Executive summary
This report involves the concept of marketing and the chosen organisation is Marks &
Spencer that will demonstrate this report. In this portfolio, some frameworks will be discussed to
analyse the internal as well as external environment for the company. This report also includes
the concept of marketing mix in relation to the company and along with it sales and negotiation
skills will be discussed in this report through a reflective cycle. Some recommendations will also
be given to the company in respect to the sales and negotiation skills that helps in the growth of
the business for achieving objectives.

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is the basic element of business management and is a process of performing
the business activities within the marketing regarding the promotion and selling of goods and
services in order to capture more target base. The role of marketing is that this process helps in
the management of the business by creating a proper workflow of the goods as well as services
starting from the production line and ending with satisfying the needs and requirements of the
potential customers. In this report, the chosen organisation organisation is Marks & Spencer that
will demonstrate different tasks of this report. This portfolio includes internal as well as external
environment analysis and along with it concept of marketing mix will be discussed. Furthermore,
sales and negotiation skills are also going to be taken into consideration in this report.
MAIN BODY
TASK 1
About the company
Marks & Spencer is a UK-based company headquartered in London that deals in retail
industry providing clothing, home products, food products and many more. Organisation is
founded by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in 1884 and is currently having 959 stores
across the UK. The company is using several strategies to gain competitive advantages in the
market over the rivalries. The areas of operations in which the company is making its business
operations are clothing, food, home products and many more (Vollero, Schultz and Siano, 2019).
The company operates through UK as well as International geographical segments. The mission
of the brand is to make an aspirational quality accessible to everyone, through the depth as well
as range of its products. The organisation is also having objectives of making people aware about
the importance of using quality products. The vision of Marks & Spencer is to provide a standard
against which its competitors may be measured from customer experience to care for the
environment as well as society and to the working environment of workforce. The competitors of
the company are Tesco, Asda, Next Plc and many more.
Role of Marketing:
There are various roles of marketing that helps an organisation in achieving its success of
its business. These are product or service management, marketing-information management,
pricing, distribution, promotion and selling of goods or services. The process of marketing helps

Marks & Spencer in serving as the face of the company, coordinating as well as producing all the
materials the represents the business. Marketing also plays an essential role within Marks &
Spencer in reaching out to the customers, investors and prospects for building its brand value in
the market. It also helps the respective company in promoting its products like food, home
products, clothing to its potential customer-base by generating awareness through describing the
features and benefits of the products. This helps the company in its business growth and also
facilitates in enhancing the level of productivity as well as profitability within the organisation.
TASK 2
Marketing environment and different layers
Marketing environment is the combination of internal as well a external factors and
forces that influence the performance of the company for establishing a relationship along with
providing services to the customers. There are various layers of the marketing environment and
some of them are demographic environment, economic environment, physical environment,
technological environment, political-legal environment, social-cultural environment,etc.
Demographic environment: this type of environment is made up of the persons who constitute
the market and is characterised as the factual research as well as segregation of the people as per
their size, density, location, age, gender, race and occupation.
Economic environment: This environment constitutes those factors that are influencing the
purchasing power of the customers as well as their spending patterns. These factors include
GDP, GNP, inflation, interest rates, income distribution, etc.
Physical environment: It involves natural environment in which a business operates and
consists of climatic conditions, changes in environment, natural disasters, pollution, etc.
Technological environment: It constitutes research and development in technology, innovation
and many more. Technology is one of the biggest source of threats and opportunities for a
business and is very dynamic.
Political-legal environment: It includes laws as well as policies and regulations of the
government that are prevailing in the country. It also includes other pressure groups as well as
agencies that impact the operations of an industry or business.
Social-cultural environment: This layer is made up of values, cultures, lifestyles, prejudice and
beliefs of people and it differs in different regions.
PESTLE ANALYSIS

This framework helps in analysing the impact of macro-environmental factors that
influence a company to follow atmosphere in executing or planning to set up new goods or
services. PESTLE Analysis is a tool that is used by industries to analyse and control macro
environmental factors that have an impact on the performance of the industry (Ocampo, 2018).
This framework helps Marks & Spencer in establishing the external factors that impacts the
performance and operations of the company. The pestle analysis of Marks & Spencer is
described as follows:
Factor Impact
Political  BREXIT
 COVID-19
In context to Brexit, company has to
face trade regulations imposed by
European Union while trading in
Europe and has made negative
impact on company as it takes time
to understand the rules and
regulations.
In context to COVID-19, the
company had to follow guidelines of
government like economic
lockdown, social distancing, etc. that
has reduced sales of company.
Economic  COVID-19
 Inflation
In relation to COVID-19, the
operations of the company turned
down as customers were not stepping
out of their homes because of highly
spreading of this infectious disease
(Mason, 2019).
During inflation within the country,
purchasing power of most people had
gone down and led to decrease in the
business operations and brings
negative impact.

Social  Taste and preference
 Health consciousness
Company provides its products to
customers by knowing their
perceptions through making a
research and it increases profitability
of the company and brings positive
impact on it (Li and et.al., 2020).
Technological  Innovative
technologies
 Cybercrimes
Company is using highly updated
technologies that helps in providing
products to customers at low cost and
it brings positive impact on company
as its customer-base has increased.
Increasing number of cybercrimes
within the country has negative
impacts on the performance of
company.
Environmental  Pollution
 Wastage
Company is using electrical vehicles
for delivering its products that emits
less pollution and brings positive
impact on company.
The wastage which is generated by
company while making products is
directly dumped into river and in
open areas (Lassl, 2019). It brings
negative impact on brand value of
company.
Legal  Employment laws
 Health and safety laws
Company is adhering laws that are
associated with its employees to
make them motivated. It brings
favourable impact on company.
The managers of the company are

taking care of the health and safety
of their employees. It makes
workforce feel valuable and brings
positive impact on company.
SWOT Analysis:
This tool helps in analysing the internal and external factors that impacts the performance
of a company. Internal factors include strength as well as weaknesses and external factors
involve opportunities and threats. Marks & Spencer use this tool to analyse the strongness and
weaknesses of company to overcome from threats and opportunities.
Strengths
 Marks & Spencer is doing many
innovations in their business which
is very high-effective in their
company and results in high
increment of sale.
 Marks & Spencer has a large
number of market share and higher
market share leads to higher growth
rate.
Weaknesses
 Supply chain scalability is one of the
biggest weakness of marks & Spencer
as it is having poor supply chain
(Hora and et.al., 2018).
 The company is offering expensive
products because increasing operating
cost due to which its customers are
declining.
Opportunities
 It is an opportunity for company to
explore its business at global level
where it is currently not available
(Haasis, Liefner and Garg, 2018).
 Conducting business through online
stores is another opportunity for
company to expand its market-
share.
Threats
 Fall in purchasing power results in
economic recession due to this the
economy goes slowdown so company
should be aware of this.
 Within retail industry, there are major
competitors of Marks & Spencer like
Tesco, Asda, etc. so company should
make effective strategies to gain
competitive advantage over them.

TASK 3
Marketing Mix and Analysis
It is a set of elements that need to be determined by a company to promote its brand or
product effectively in market with an aim to earn and maximize company's profit. To do so, they
concentrate on seven factors that are Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Process, People, Physical
evidence and are also known as 7 P's of Marketing mix. Marketing mix strategy helps Marks &
Spencer to stand itself competitively in market to achieve targets of company. Marketing mix of
Marks & Spencer is described as under :
 Product: It is anything that can be offered to market for gaining attention, acquisition
and consumption that might satisfy a want or need of customer. Company has a wide
variety of its products like home products, food, clothing, etc (Al Zuned, 2017).
 Price: The amount of money charged for a product or service that consumers exchange
for benefits of having or using it is known as Price. Company is using competitive pricing
strategy in which price of competitor's products are analysed and evaluated for pricing
company's own products (Bhattacharya and Neelam, 2018).
 Place: It refers to channels of distribution or path through which products are moved
from manufacturer to consumer. Company has over 1500 stores in 62 international
markets (Casson and Wadeson, 2018).
 Promotion: It refers to several tools used by company to create, maintain and increase
the demand for products and services. It focuses on creating awareness and persuading
customers to buy products by advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public
relation and direct marketing (Chatrapathy, 2017). Company is using social media
platforms, advertisements on websites for promoting its products.
 People: It refers to company's staff who are at forefront when interacting with customers,
taking and processing their enquires. In Marks & Spencer, there are 78000 employees
who are actively taking participation in business (Coe, Lee and Wood, 2017).
 Process: It refers to flow of activities that take place when there is an interaction between
customers and businesses. Marks & Spencer is following the process of face-to-face
interaction with its customers while providing products (de Freitas and et.al., 2019).
 Physical evidence: It is everything that every customer see when interacting with
company or business and it includes physical environment where Marks & Spencer

provides product, layout or interior design, company's product packaging as well as
branding (Fralich and Papadopoulos, 2018).
TASK 4
Sales and negotiation skills
For this section, the chosen reflective model is Gibb's Reflective Cycle. Sale negotiation
is a strategic discussion between a buyer and a seller that ideally results in dealing being closed.
Gibb's Reflective Cycle is described as below on sales and negotiation skills:
 Description: For developing sales and negotiation skills within me such as talking to the
right people, establishing customer's pain, building relationship, quantify the value,
staying calm, etc. I thought to join my friend's business in which he was performing the
role of marketing manager. As these skills not only helps me in my present but also
facilitates me in my future if I ever think to perform the role of marketing manager.
 Feelings: I was little nervous when I went to my friend's business and thought that
whether I would be able to develop those sales and negotiation skills within me or not.
But after observing the way of my friend in the marketing process that how he used to
speak with people, how to make interaction with them and many more, I thought that I
must try to develop those skills within me.
 Evaluation: Developing sales and negotiation skills is a typical task as not everyone is
perfect in the field of marketing. When I was developing those skills, I also felt that how
I can develop these skills in a better way. But my friend has suggested me to do some
tasks like to do communication with 5 or 6 customers in a day to persuade them for
buying the products of the company. I did the same as my friend had suggested me for 10
days and amid those days, I observed that there were 10 to 15 customers who were agree
with me and were ready to buy the products. I felt encouraged and also evaluated that
now I am developed with those skills.
 Analysis: In the process of developing sales and negotiation skills, I analysed that it was
not difficult for me to develop those skills and I easily developed the skills within me
with the help of my friend. The suggestion given by my friend to me for the development
of sales and negotiation skills was absolutely good and it really helped me in developing
those skills. I also analysed that these skills would also assists me in my future when I
will perform the role of marketing manager.

 Conclusion: It is the last stage of Gibb's Reflective Cycle and at this stage, I am able to
develop sales and negotiation skills within me in a very easy manner. This reflective
cycle facilitated me in analysing the loopholes that were present within me earlier. This
model helped me in thinking critically about the experiences that I have gained in
developing the sales and negotiation skills. By making use of this reflective cycle, I felt
empowered and encouraged and also learnt to do better work in next time.
Use of sales and negotiation skills in Marks & Spencer
There are various sales and negotiation skills and some of them are effective
communication skills, persuasion skills, planning skills, strategizing skills, cooperating skills,
etc. In context to Marks & Spencer, the company is using these skills in such a way that first of
all it clearly defines the concessions and after that it speaks to others regarding the marketing
concepts (Franke and Foerstl, 2020). The company makes strategic concessions that helps it in
gaining competitive advantages. The employees of the company also builds strong relationships
with its customer-base to capture them and persuades them to buy the products of the company.
Recommendations
It is recommended to Marks & Spencer that it must targets specific market segments and
talk to the right people by establishing customer's pain and knowing their issues regarding the
product that which type of product they actually want. While delivering products to its
customers, the employees of the company must stay calm and act like a partner so that the
customer feel valued and buy the products of the company.
CONCLUSION
From above explanation of the report, it has been concluded that marketing is an essential
department within an organisation that helps a company in achieving its objectives in an
effective manner. This tool helps the company in increasing its profitability level by making
different effective marketing strategies. In this report, Marks & Spencer has been chosen to
demonstrate this report. Role of marketing has been discussed in context to the company and
along with it different macro-environmental factors have been explained through pestle analysis.
For analysing internal and external factors of company, swot analysis has been used in this
report. The concept of marketing mix has also been explained in context to the chosen company
and along with it the aspect of sales and negotiation skills have also been described in this report
through reflection and also in relation to company with recommendations.

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