PESTLE and SWOT Analysis of Marks and Spencer

This report discusses the PESTLE analysis of Marks and Spencer, evaluating its macro environmental factors. It also includes a SWOT analysis of the company, interrelation between micro and macro factors, and a critical reflection on the key findings and evaluation of the decision-making process of the company. The report concludes with suggestions for better decision-making and growth of the company.

UNIT 1 - BUSINESS AND
BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
PESTLE analysis describing macro environmental factors-.......................................................3
SWOT analysis of Marks and Spencer........................................................................................4
A critical reflection on the key findings and evaluation of the decision- making process of
company.......................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Business environment refers to the aggregate factors that includes the internal and
external factors of the business and this helps the company to grow in the market. Basically it
includes the employees, customers, customers needs and expectations, innovation in the
technology, etc. The company must used to focus on such facts as this helps them to have better
market share. The current assignment is based on Marks and Spencer which is the retail
multinational company used to sell variety of products and services. This report will outline the
PESTLE, SWOT and TOWS of the chosen organization at last this report will include the
Critical reflection on the findings and its impact on decision-making.
MAIN BODY
PESTLE analysis describing macro environmental factors-
Marks & Spencer is working in more than 100 nations. The organization is well known
for its wider offerings of retail products. In order to bring deeper understanding of its external or
macro level elements an analysis is being carried out using PESTLE method as follows-
Political factors-
The nation is experiencing political shuffles. As it has been seen that due to wider
prevalence in range of countries the company is copping up with global political dynamics. As in
past the decision of Brexit was taken which had brought different issues to the organization. Now
the access is a bit restricted in European market where it is sharing its great diaspora. For
example- on 8/2017 the process of Brexit begins and it brought range of challenges to the retail
giant (Nandonde, 2019)
Economic factors-
Specifically after Covid-19, the global economy is facing issue of inflation, where to
ensure survival is not an easy nut to crack. Due to political turmoil the global market has tasted
economical perils. The entity is also suffering from the same set of perils. On the other hands, in
some global markets a great growth is also being experienced. So it is offering doors of making
hyper progress. For example- The global growth is projected to be around 3.6 percent in 2022-
2023.
Social factors-
With the progress of time, the world has experienced gigantic changes in the social
phenomenon. The global market is more inclined to adjust with different social factors. The

people are now heavily inclined to abide with global culture. It offers great opportunity to the
organization to come up with its products and expanding its market approach.
Technological factors-
In last couple of years the world has kicked off range of new technologies. For instance-
Robotics, automation technology, artificial intelligence etc. These all new advancements are
somehow paving the way forward for such organization. Marks & Spencer is known for its
ability to target middle and higher income class people (Anderson, Hughes and Nguyen, 2019)
It would be in its favour to take advantage of these innovations for making the business more
lucrative.
Legal factors-
There are some drastic legal factors too. Which are having their significant impact on the
business operations. It becomes prominent for such entities to perceive the global legal factors so
can abide with them and can make its practises more lucrative. For examples- Global taxations,
customer security laws, export and import laws, financing norms etc. These aspects are brining
sort of new challenges before the entity but also offering its huge scope of making growth.
Environmental factors-
The society is now more conscious about the way environment is being treated by such
multi-national corporations. It is not much handy, since there are number of expeditions are
being run for instance- SDGs which are to be achieved by the year 2030 (Kaneshamoorthy,
2020) at the same time, there are some rigid rules, regulations for MNCs to comply with. It is
coming up with new challenges but with some new ways of growth too.
SWOT analysis of Marks and Spencer
STRENGTHS
 The strengths factor of the company is
that it used to has a global presence and
this is recognized in every part of the
country.
 The aim of the company is to have
better growth by having more target
customers (Benzaghta and et.al., 2021).
 The company used to sell variety of
WEAKNESSES
 The firm no doubt used to gain the
competitive advantage but in context of
this the company has high fear of
having the high competition because it
is the branded company with labelled
products.
 The company cannot operate in such
areas where they used to have less

different products and services that
helps them to grow in the market.
 By having variety of products used to
gain better profits in the market.
adoption of new technology.
 By this it used to have great impact on
the operation and affects the strategies
of the company as well.
OPPORTUNITIES
 The company used to have the great
opportunity that by having the
globalization of the products the
business can do the diversification mad
market development. This helps them
to increase the profitability and market
share of the company.
 By having proper concentration on the
environmental factors are considered as
the key factors that helps the company
to have better expansion and
development.
THREATS
 The threat that the company faces is to
have the substitution of the products in
the market. By this it used to affect the
uniqueness of the company and make
them inefficient.
 The another threat that the company
has that there are different competitors
which reduces the needs of the
customers on the company (Hajizadeh,
2019).
From the above SWOT analysis of the company it can be seen that it must focus about
the internal factors that helps them to manage the range of their products. By manufacturing the
unique products it will support the company in order compete with the competitors in the market.
Interrelation between the Micro and macro factors of Marks and Spencer
The internal and external factors of M&S is interrelated as this are basically the sides of
the same coin. The external factor of the company used to have great impact on the strengths and
weaknesses that includes the competitors, consumer behaviour, economies of scale, changes in
taste and preferences, etc. This factor also affect the company directly as this is done by having
marketing of the environment where everything used to be changes on continuous basis (Vlados,
2019). This shows that the interrelationship used to influence the competitiveness of the business
strategies and the decision -making of the firm to take better actions.
In order to have the further expansion and development of the company in the global
market, they must take the internal factors as the consideration. By this it helps them to know
about the need that are required to be reformulated in their decision-making strategies and

required to be improved. The main interrelation between both the factors is customers as this
used to cover all the aspects of the operational activities. Their behaviour in the company can be
classified as the social element and the external and internal factors. These both factors used to
equally affect the customers and take the company to have slow down in order to rise in the
market.
A critical reflection on the key findings and evaluation of the decision- making process of
company
The Gibb's reflective cycle was basically originated in the 19th century that used to
evaluate explored experiences of the person. This model allows the person to learn from their
own prepared interpretation that helps them to evaluate and implement in near future
(Namugenyi, Nimmagadda and Reiners, 2019). From the above analysis of Marks and Spencer,
it makes me to understand about the operations of the business and how they used to operate in
the market. The company has made various efforts that helps the people to have increase in the
standard of living and improves the decision-making of the company.
From this task I felt that it is not possible for th company to manage the different types of
activities in their day to day life. In order to carry out such research in my opinion, the company
needs to do the better decision-making that helps them to evaluate the better strategies in the
competitive market. There is the great impact on the global market as the company is the
multinational firm. From this I have developed my research and communication skills that helps
us to solve the problems related to the project.
By framing the action plan, it helps to design the strategies in order to have the proper
planning if the things. This will include all such activities that are important for the company to
do in order to have better profits (Bousdekis and et.al., 2021). By this it will help me to have the
proper and organized structure. This also supports the company to have the proper rules and
regulations that helps to enhance the objectives of the business operations. The key findings of
the project has increases my knowledge about marketing globally. This report also shows that the
company used to have great threat from the competitors. So they must start making some unique
products that helps the company to have increase in the market share and have more target
customers in the market. This helps the company to have the better decision-making and make
them grow in the competitive market.

CONCLUSION
From the above report it is concluded about the different external factors that used to
have impact on the organization. This is described by using the PESTLE analysis that is the
macro model to know about external market. Further the report has evaluated about the SWOT
and TOWS analysis to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the company. At the end the
report has described about the reflection on the key findings and its influence on decision-
making process. This will help the company to have the better decision-making and improves
their growth as well.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Benzaghta, M. A. and et.al., 2021. SWOT analysis applications: An integrative literature
review. Journal of Global Business Insights. 6(1). pp.55-73.
Hajizadeh, Y., 2019. Machine learning in oil and gas; a SWOT analysis approach. Journal of
Petroleum Science and Engineering. 176. pp.661-663.
Vlados, C., 2019. On a correlative and evolutionary SWOT analysis. Journal of Strategy and
Management.
Namugenyi, C., Nimmagadda, S. L. and Reiners, T., 2019. Design of a SWOT analysis model
and its evaluation in diverse digital business ecosystem contexts. Procedia Computer
Science. 159. pp.1145-1154.
Bousdekis, A. and et.al., 2021. A review of data-driven decision-making methods for industry
4.0 maintenance applications. Electronics. 10(7). p.828.
Anderson, J. E., Hughes, M. Ü. and Nguyen, C., 2019. The highs and lows of startups in the
Cannabis industry: A PESTLE analysis of the current issues. In Business Forum (Vol.
27, No. 2, p. 26).
Kaneshamoorthy, M., 2020. WILL ROUTINE FRAILTY IDENTIFICATION BY GPS
IMPROVE PATIENT CARE? A REVIEW OF THE 2017 GMS CONTRACT FOR
GENERAL PRACTITIONERS (GPS) USING PESTLE ANALYSIS TOOL. Age &
Ageing. 49.
Nandonde, F. A., 2019. A PESTLE analysis of international retailing in the East African
Community. Global Business and Organizational Excellence. 38(4). pp.54-61.
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