Principles of Marketing: Analysis of Challenges and SWOT of Marks & Spencer

This report analyzes the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of Marks & Spencer. It identifies the major service marketing challenges and provides recommendations to overcome them.

Principles of Marketing

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................1
Analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threat facing the organisation ...........1
Identification of organisation's major service marketing challenges...........................................2
Analyses the threats through the lens of theoretical principles of services marketing ...............3
Recommendation.........................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Marketing refers to the process of creating, exploring and delivering the product and
services to meet the expectation and demands of the target audience in target market. It refers to
the set of activities of marketers of company to promote the exchanging of goods and services to
achieve the desire goal. It include activities like promotional, advertising, offering as well as
delivering the products to the customers and other companies. Principle of marketing includes 4P
such as product, price, place and promotion which helps them to promote their product
effectively (Hajjat, 2021). To explain this concept the selected company is Marks & Spencer
which is British multinational fashion and retail company. It was established in 1884 by Michael
Marks, Thomas Spencer to offer clothing, food and home products to the people in UK.
The report highlights analysis of strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threat of the
organisation. It covers identification of the organisation's key service marketing challenges for
the next 3 years. Further, it define the analyses of the threats through the lens of theoretical
principles as well as recommendation to overcome challenges.
MAIN BODY
Analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threat facing the organisation
SWOT analysis
SWOT analysis is the business analytical tools to identify the internal strength and
weaknesses as well as the external opportunities and threats for the working or growth of the
business. It is most common tools which helps the management of Marks & Spencer to
determine the area in which they are good and strong as well as the area which they need to
improve to achieve the organisation goals efficiently (Hockenberry, 2019). It also helps the
management to grab and get profitable opportunities for future growth as well as the threat from
which they need to careful and tackle effectively. The SWOT analysis in the context to Mark &
Spencer are as follows
Strength
 Variety of product- The biggest
strength of Mark & Spencer is they
offer variety of products such as
vegetables, food, clothing as well as
Weaknesses
 Declining sales- The main weakness of
the company is they have less effective
and poor distribution channel. At the
time of peak they fail to provide
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home product to the people which
attract large number of customer as they
get all the items under one store. It is
the biggest super market in the UK
which no other company has such
variety of products for the customers. Recognised brand- The Mark &
Spencer operate their business at large
scale from many decades which has
great reputation in the market for their
better quality product and services. By
providing best quality goods they
created loyal customer base and big
market value(Jobber and Ellis-
Chadwick, 2019).
products in large quantity to their
potential customers. Not availability of
products to fulfil the demands of
customers leads to decline in their sale
and loyal customer base.
 High cost- One of the biggest problems
of Mark & Spencer is the sales of the
company is highly depended on its
manual operations. Which is very
costly as well as consuming lot of time
due to the old and traditional process
which take more time as compare to
advanced technology.
Opportunities
 Global expansion- The opportunity
for the Mark & Spencer is they expand
their business in many big countries to
earn maximum profit and big market
share. The company will launch their
branches of business in many other
countries and provide their products to
increase their brand value globally. Online store- By adding more features
in their current online store they can
spread awareness about their product
globally and increase their sale
Threats
 High competition- Many big
companies and their effective as well
as innovating pricing and marketing
policies are the biggest threat for the
Mark & Spencer as it decline their
sales and profitability (Swanson and
LaLuzerne, 2018).
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Identification of organisation's major service marketing challenges
Secondary research and analysis of Marks & Spencer includes summary and collection of
data generated in various publications, agencies or associations. It helps the firm to examine its
weaknesses and risks that it might face in future due to dynamic environment of business.
Management of company assess various data about company from several secondary sources in
order to make effective business strategies to reduce the impact of those threats to some extent.
Weaknesses and threats related to marketing that Marks & Spencer might face in upcoming years
are described below:
Weaknesses- As per a report in 2019 by Wood, the sales prospect of some store of Marks
& Spencer had gone down drastically. The reason behind this problem is the ineffective supply
chain management system and no proper stock of products. It has been evaluated that in
upcoming three years Marks & Spencer will counter this problem as major weakness as the firm
is not focusing properly on its distribution channels. Due to lack of required marketing activities
and inefficiency to meet customer demand can result in reducing brand value in market which
will also affect public perception towards firm. Marks & Spencer interdependence on its manual
operations could result in obsolete activities which will both waste time and money of
management (Swanson, 2019). Retail industry is evolving quickly and Marks & Spencer has
legged behind as it is unable to implement advance technologies. If the pattern continues, it
might suffer heavy losses and intense competition from its rivals.
Threats- In modern world, many firms are entering the retail market with heavy funding,
advance technologies and great products or services. This resulted in high competition intensity
for Marks & Spencer as it has incapable to cope up with these new entrants. The already existing
companies have also increased their market area by implementing great promotional and
marketing activities. If Marks & Spencer does not make effective strategies to deal with these
competitors than it might lose its customer base to those rivals. With changing world, everything
is available online so Marks & Spencer should strengthen its online channels to mitigate impact
of risks. In near future, the firm might encounter threat of becoming outdated in absence of
creative marketing strategies. Preferences and taste of customers are changing frequently which
is hampering the existing activities of business. Marks & Spencer might face the risk of not
delivering required products to its customers due to lack of market research. Unsatisfied
customers can lead to minimise profitability of company as well as impact brand value.
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Analyses the threats through the lens of theoretical principles of services marketing
Service marketing refers the activities related the promotions and advertisement function
of the business to provides services to the people in order to increase sales and brand awareness.
It includes 4P such as product, price, place and promotion to achieve the goals of the company.
The marketers of Mark & Spencer can use these marketing principles to increase the value of
customers by providing these services effectively (Taylor, 2020).
Product- It refers to the product and services of the company which they produce and sell in the
market in order to earn profit. The Mark & Spencer sell variety of products such as food,
vegetables, home products and clothing with better quality to the people to fulfil their needs and
demand.
Price- It refers to the pricing policy of the company as well as price of their product which they
sale in the market. The management of Mark & Spencer must set the price of their product in
such as way that every income group can afford this to meet their needs.
Place- The marketers of the Mark & Spencer must the suitable place and location to provide
their products to the large number of customers and they can easily reach to buy these products
without any difficulties.
Promotion- The marketers of Mark & Spencer use effective and digital marketing as well as
distribution tools to promote or sale their product in the target market effectively.
Recommendation
To reduce the challenges as well as eliminate the threat of competitions and changing
perception of people, the marketers of Mark & Spencer conduct deep research about the policies
of competitors, recent consumer and market trends in order to improve their current business
processes and policies to compete in the market (Woodham, 2018). By this they can make fast
and effective changes in the working or performance of employees to provide best quality
product to the customers at affordable price.
CONCLUSION
As per the given information, it is concluded that the marketing is most important part of
the company by which they attract large number of customers to achieve the goal of company.
By using SWOT analysis the manager can identify their threat and weakness for making
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improvement in the quality of their current products in order to overcome the challenges of the
company.
REFERENCES
Books and journal
Hajjat, F.M., 2021. Using marketing for good: An experiential project on cause-related
marketing in a principles course. Journal of Education for Business. 96(7). pp.461-467.
Hockenberry, T., 2019. Marketing isn't just for products and services. The Journal for Quality
and Participation. 41(4). pp.17-19.
Jobber, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F., 2019. EBOOK: Principles and Practice of Marketing, 9e.
McGraw Hill.
Swanson, S.R. and LaLuzerne, M., 2018. Perceptions of Marketing: An Analysis of Differences
and Commonalities Among Business and Non-Business Majors.
Swanson, S.R., 2019. The defining dozen: undergraduate students preconceived views of
marketing. Marketing Education Review. 29(1). pp.3-16.
Taylor, R., 2020. Reframing Delivery of Principles of Marketing: Moving Bored Students to
Board Room Employer-Needed Kick-Ass Skilled Grads. Academy of Business Research
Journal. 2. pp.52-66.
Woodham, O.P., 2018. Testing the effectiveness of a marketing simulation to improve course
performance. Marketing Education Review. 28(3). pp.203-216.
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