Context of Business: Environmental Analysis, Leadership Styles, and CSR Activities of Marks and Spencer

Context of Business

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................4
Environmental analysis..........................................................................................................4
Influence of COVID-19 and Brexit on Marks and Spencer...................................................7
Recommended leadership styles for Marks and Spencer.......................................................8
CSR activities of Marks and Spencer.....................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Context of Business helps company to understand the factors that affecting their business
from different perspectives including how to make decision as well as what are effective
practices that help in achieving the target goals. For the following report, selected company is
Marks and Spencer which is a multinational retailing company of UK and specialises in offering
of home, clothing and food products (Boone, and et.al., 2019). The company was founded by
Michael marks and Thomas Spencer in 1884 and its headquarters is in London, England, UK.
The report covers the dynamic and changing nature of business along with the consideration of
the future of organisations within the global business environment along with the need for
individuals and organisation to manage responsibly as well as sustainably and behave ethically in
relation to social, cultural, economic as well as environmental issues. It further includes
leadership, development of people as well as management along with the development of
appropriate policies and strategies within a changing environment in order to meet stakeholder
interests. In addition to this, the design and development of organisation are also included.
MAIN BODY
Environmental analysis
To gain perspective into the detailed elements of the business environment within which
a firm operates, use of strategic management models is necessary which provide a
comprehensive analysis on various dimensions of the business (Haski-Leventhal, 2018).

Analysis of both internal and external surrounding of a business is very important to know the
insights of the current developments that might affect business operations and the style of
leadership and CSR activities are also directly influenced by happenings in the business
environment. The SWOT and PESTLE analysis of Marks and Spencer has been given below
which are both commonly used analytical frameworks which help in identification of
opportunities and threats along with facilitating analysis through separation of the outside
environment in different layers.
SWOT ANALYSIS
Strengths
 Large variety of market offerings with
multiple product lines covering
different retail segments
 The company is well experienced as it
has been in the retail sector for more
than a century and has great brand
recognition
Weaknesses
 Poor supply chain system which has
been prone to disruptions resulting in
product unavailability
 Since the company is quite old and
traditional in most of it's operations, it
uses manual processes costing a lot of
time and money
Opportunities
 Detailed market segmentation in
multiple countries and developing
regional variants of it's most popular
product lines
 Development of online channels of
sales and expanding into new
businesses
Threats
 Marks and Spencer has been caught in
many controversies and it's hard earned
goodwill developed from a century of
hard work has started to erode (M&S in
hot water with furious shoppers over its
new Indian dish, 2022).
 The retail market has been brimming
with tough competition with major
players expanding their operations such