Sales Decline and Impact on Retail Industry due to Covid-19: A Study on Marks and Spencer

Professional development and
practice
Management Report

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Background..................................................................................................................................3
Aim and objectives......................................................................................................................4
Research questions.......................................................................................................................4
Rationale......................................................................................................................................4
Significance.................................................................................................................................5
Research methodology.....................................................................................................................6
Research type...............................................................................................................................6
Research design...........................................................................................................................6
Research approach.......................................................................................................................6
Research philosophy....................................................................................................................7
Data collection:............................................................................................................................7
Sampling......................................................................................................................................7
Data analysis................................................................................................................................8
Ethical considerations..................................................................................................................8
Reliability and validity................................................................................................................8
Limitations of the study...............................................................................................................9
Data Analysis...................................................................................................................................9
Primary research: Questionnaire method.....................................................................................9
Secondary research....................................................................................................................17
Findings and discussion.................................................................................................................17
Conclusion and recommendations.................................................................................................19
References......................................................................................................................................21

Topic: To study the challenge of sales decline and its impact on retail industry due to Covid-
19 pandemic: A study on Marks and Spencer
Introduction
Background
In present times, the entire retail sector is going through a major disruption in terms of
sales decline and lack of customers. The various areas that have been affected are poor logistics
and transportation facilities, sudden need for adoption of technology, inefficiencies in supply
chain and lack of customers due to lockdown. The decline in sales has led to heavy losses for
clothing and food-based retailer like Marks and Spencer which is facing huge losses and had to
terminated m huge section of its employees to optimize their costs and finances. Marks &
Spencer has is a major British multinational company that deals primarily in clothing and
apparels section, home based products of own label and also food products. The company is
headquartered in London and was established in 1884 in Leeds, UK. There are more than 1400
stores operating worldwide and the company is considered a top performing company with high
brand equity (Mitchell and et.al., 2020).
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit Marks & Spencer hugely and affected majority of its
business functions and presenting it with challenges such as management of the demand
functions and falling demand to visit bricks and mortar stores of the company, negative cash
flow and financial instability, supply chain and logistics inefficiencies, trading issues and heavy
reliance on single manufacturing facilities, source to consumer traceability in supply chains. The
company has to improve in various areas as the new normal post lockdown would be completely
different in context of reorganisation, focussing on online stores, social distancing within stores,
recruitment of skilled candidates, adoption of different safety measures, security, risk
management, technology improvements, inventory management and distribution in order to
survive and regain the market share and improve the sales performance (MIRCHEVA, 2020).
There is a high need for the company to incorporate new technology systems, remotely engaging
the employees and provision of effective training to become adaptable to the new normal and
provide customer service accordingly and preparing the entire organisation and frontline workers
to deal with the challenges and making the physical stores successful to recover the major losses
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faced by the company. In order to increase the sales and attracting customers, the company has to
create new shopping experiences for its customers and expand its online markets (Kaine, Payne
and Coneybeer, 2020).
Aim and objectives
Aim: To evaluate the sales decline challenge and its impact faced by Marks and spencer due to
Covid-19 Pandemic
Objectives:
 To study the concept of sales performance as a business organisation challenge in retail
industry.
 To determine the reasons for the decline in sales in respect to covid-19 pandemic.
 To understand and evaluate the impact of sales decline on Marks and spencer.
 To devise strategies and recommendations for marks and spencer in dealing with the
challenge
Research questions
 What is the concept of sales decline as a business challenges that retail industry is
currently facing?
 What are the reasons responsible for decline in sales in Marks and Spencer in context to
covid-19 pandemic?
 What is the impact of sales decline on the finances, employees, operations and
management in Marks and Spencer?
 Propose recommendations on how Marks and spencer can deal with the challenges
presented by Covid-19 pandemic?
Rationale
The major reason for the selection of this topic is that the retail sector is facing difficult
business situations due to COVID-19 pandemic and Marks & Spencer being a fashion and
clothing company is individual challenges in context to decline in sales due to its pre-existing
trading problems. The COVID-19 pandemic has proved that it is essential to adapt in the
V.U.C.A (vulnerable, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world for surviving in the business
industry and the importance of receptiveness to change. There are various problems that the
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company might encounter post lockdown and is necessary to value the challenges to come up
with relevant solutions to counter them. These may include dealing with maximum capacity in
the bricks and mortar stores once they are open, fitting room issues, disinfection of the clothes,
queue management and payment methods and changes in employee training. To deal with the
clothing industry challenges and successfully making strategic plan to adapt with the new normal
and has been a major motivation of the study (SZYDLOWSKA, 2020). The new normal will
also come up with issues in managing the cash flows of the company and adaptation of
capabilities in the entire retail sector. It is essential that Marks & Spencer survives through the
pandemic by adoption of relevant changes, improve their ability to meet contingency challenges
and demonstrate a strong and more competitive approach to increase the declining sales. The
company has to focus upon cultural changes and shifting to new paradigms for responding
efficiently to the new needs and requirements of the customers, their habits and even experiment
new and innovative solutions after considering the experiences learned in the pandemic
(Sokolova and Li, 2020).
Significance
This research report will prove highly significant for all the stakeholders of Marks &
Spencer and other companies working in the retail industry such as employees, top management,
finance, marketing and HR departments, investors, suppliers and vendors, and operations team
that are facing financial and sales challenges to understand the depth of the issue and the major
reasons for the sales decline. It will prove significant to all the government institution, business
organisations and scholars who are researching about the challenges in retail industry due to the
pandemic and help in the closure of the literature gaps.
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Research methodology
Research type
Research types can be broadly categorised into two methods, that are qualitative and
quantitative researches. Qualitative research is concerned with the discovery of human behaviour
understanding that is done from the perspective of the informant and assumes a dynamic and
negotiated reality. On the other hand, a quantitative research is aimed at finding out the facts
regarding any social phenomenon and there is an assumption of a fixed yet measurable reality.
This research will undertake qualitative research method to gather deeper insights into meanings,
issues, concepts and themes as per the data collected and analyse it on the basis of a grounded
theory involving naturalistic approach to the subject matter (Durdella, 2017).
Research design
There are various kinds of research designs such as descriptive, exploratory, correlation,
experimental and the basic purpose of selection is because it is the overall strategy that is chosen
for integration of different components of the research in coherent manner. The research design
will also help in setting up the cause and effect linkage among different variables.
The research design undertaken in this research will be descriptive which will explain the
population, challenges, issues, problems, situations and phenomenon of the subject matter in a
systematic and accurate manner. This is highly suitable for application on a broad variety of
research methods, especially with qualitative method for investigation of one or more variables.
Research approach
There are two approaches in context to research two approaches can be adopted by the
scholar, inductive or deductive. The inductive approach follows the order of gathering the data,
analysis s after looking at the patterns and developing the theory with a general level of focus.
Deductive approach adopts the above steps in a reverse order, and begins with hypothesising on
a general level of focus, analysing the data and concluding if the hypothesis is supported or not.
This research will adopt the inductive style of research as the research will use data collection to
gather relevant data and observe the data and analyse it from specific experiences and general set
of propositions and interpret meanings (Zalaghi and Khazaei, 2016).
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