Strategic Analysis for Marks and Spencer

The assignment content discusses the strategies and plans of a company to improve its market position by introducing new departments, such as electronics and furniture, and focusing on customer service. The company also aims to increase brand promotion through sports and events sponsorships, which would help in sales. Understanding competitors' strategies and overcoming them is crucial for the company's success.

TITLE: MANAGEMENT AND OPERATION
STUDENT NAME
STUDENT ID
PROFESSOR’S NAME
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Table of content
Task 1 (LO1 and LO2)....................................................................................................................3
Introduction to organisation and management structure.................................................................3
Role of manager and leader, difference between management and leadership...............................4
Role of management and leadership in various organisational situations, with reference to
theories and concept........................................................................................................................6
For growth and performance how management theories applied to organisation...........................6
Conclusion and recommendation....................................................................................................7
Task 2 (LO3 and LO4)....................................................................................................................8
Introduction to operation of the organisation..................................................................................8
Role and responsibilities of manager in operational function.........................................................9
Operational approaches to operation management and value.......................................................10
Impact of external environment factor in decision making by leader and manager......................11
Leadership and management can improve operational efficiencies to meet business objectives. 12
Conclusion and recommendation..................................................................................................13
Reference list:................................................................................................................................14
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Task 1 (LO1 and LO2)
Figure 1: Logo of Mark and Spencer
(Source: Marksandspencer.com. 2017)
Introduction to organisation and management structure
This particular part of the report deals with the role and function of manager and leader. The two
departments are the main root of an organisation. It helps the organisation to meet its objectives.
The selected organisation for this report is Marks and Spencer. It was founded in the year 1884,
by Sir Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer. The company is also abbreviated as M&S.
Headquarter of this company is in London, UK. It is a retail and public limited company. Robert
Swannell is the chairman and Steve Rowe is the CEO of M&S. According to a report of 2016,
yearly revenue was ₤ 10, 554.4 million, operating income was ₤784.9 million, and earned profit
was ₤ 404.4 million. Latest report of 2017 says that M&S have 82,904 employees all over the
world. The company is specialized in dealing with clothing, home products and luxury food
products (Marksandspencer.com. 2017). In the year 2008 company began to sell branded good
likes Kellogg’s corn Flakes. The company have 852 stores all over UK, it also possess some
international stores like 52 in India, 48 in Turkey, 37 in Russian and 5 stores in Spain. M&S
share are been listed in London stock exchange and FTSE 100 index. A recent report says that
clothing sales has decreased and food sale have increased.
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Management structure
Figure 2: Management structure of M&S
(Source: Marksandspencer.com. 2017)
Figure 1 deal with the management structure of Marks and Spencer’s. The management structure
is headed by board of directors and then next is Chief executive officer. Three departments are
formed from CEO and they are marketing, operation and administration. Marketing department
has various other sub departments such as sales and advertisement. Operation has two
department named as production and customer service. Administration is consisted of two
departments such as finance and human resource.
Role of manager and leader, difference between management and leadership
Role of manager is very important for an organisation. Managers of M&S play a vital role in the
development of the company. Aim is to maximize the profit with minimising the cost. Promotion
of every product is to be managed by the manager. Some roles are as follows:
● Managing and motivating the team members and also focus on increasing the sale.
● They even focus on managing stock level
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● M&S manager also deals with the issue related to the staff such as increment,
performance reviews and interviews.
● They also conduct training and development.
● Manager plays a vital role in responding to customer complaint and reviews.
● Making strategic plays to improve sale and promotion of product.
● Health, safety and legal issue are also handled by the managers.
Role of leader are as follows:
● Represent organisation: Leader of M&S are considered as the representative of the
organisation (McDonagh and Prothero, 2014, p.238). Meeting, seminar and conference
are been attended by managers on behalf of the company. He acts as a communicator
with outside public. Sometime he represents his own department.
● Invites support: As leader is the person who leads M&S, so he tries to gains support from
other subordinates (Epstein and Buhovac, 2014, p.324). All this are benefited to the
organisation. After gaining support of employees he helps the company to achieve its
objectives.
● Required for all level: A leader needs to be present in all the levels of the organisation.
As M&S is a retails company so it has many departments and in various department there
is a requirement of good leader (Purvis, 2015, p.334). He guides everything with the help
of guidance and counselling.
Management: The word management is the addition of four important terms such as
man+age+men+ t(technique). In simple words it means that technique that is used by man for
dealing and handling different age group or person working together to achieve the same
objectives. The person who handles all the activities of management is known as manager. Main
functions of management are planning, organizing, leading and decision making.
Leadership: Leading a group or making them to move forward in a direction of success is
known as leadership. Basically it is an interpersonal process. It lead people through
encouragement. Principles and guidelines are been established in leadership. Leadership is the
only reason to bring change in an organisation.
Both leadership and management helped M&S to be a successful retail organisation around the
world (Chiu et al. 2017, p.318) without this two it would be impossible to handle such a vast
organisation.
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Role of management and leadership in various organisational situations, with
reference to theories and concept
Management and leadership theories are very important for an organisation as this help the
company to achieve its desired target and also to make company a successful one. Some theories
and concept are as follows:
Contingency theory: This theory states that manager takes decision according to the situation
which would be benefitted to the organisation. At that moment he takes the most appropriate
decision that would be benefitted to the M&S. Some approaches of this theory is that M&S is an
open system so it needs proper management to satisfy staffs and customers. This theory consists
of various contingencies such as technology, supplier and distributor of M&S, government and
unions.
System theory: This theory helps to recognize system that affect the worker and also help to
understand how worker affects the system (Gruber et al. 2015, p.168). The various small system
works together to achieve the goal for M&S. It even helps the manager to understand the pattern
and event in the organisation. The manager and leader of M&S work together so that company
would hit its goals rather than working in isolated system.
Situational leadership: This believes in various leadership styles that are required for a
company to be a successful leader such as directing, coaching, supporting and delegating.
Leadership department of M&S not only depends on how group or individual work but it
depends on how effective is the task. As this is a retail company so it has various departments so
leader needs to act in relation with the situation (Mujtaba, 2013, p.345). Normally these leaders
are very much experienced so they have less difficulty in handling the various situations. They
are much comfortable to handle the situation of the organisation.
For growth and performance how management theories applied to
organisation
Management theories are very important for an organisation to improve its growth and
performance. All this theories combines together to hit the target and objectives for the
organisation. Management theories are been discussed below:
● Chaos theory: Changes in an organisation is inevitable and rarely controlled. With every
change of time M&S is changing according to the requirement so this theory help the
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organisation to manage those changes. Taste of customer towards clothing is changing
with every change in fashion (Middlehurst, 2013, p.275). So in order to retain its
customers and position in the market it needs to change its collection in clothing
department. This would help them in growth and improve performance of the company.
Lastly it would get the support of its customer.
● System theory: This theory supports in working together as a group or team work. M&S
is a very vast company so it needs coordination of every member so that it faces fewer
problems in handling the situation (Goetsch and Davis, 2014, p.344). Every department
of the chosen company works together so that company could increase its growth and
performance. M&S follows flat organisational structure so every department plays an
important role in company’s improvement and performance.
● Contingency theory: Managers of M&S needs to have capabilities to taken sudden
required decisions. These decisions of the managers are interrelated with the growth and
performance of organisation (Tsai and Pai, 2014, p.178). The success of M&S is related
to the manager’s decisions.
Conclusion and recommendation
Impact of leader and manager on organisation is that they are the main roots of company’s
success and thus they play vital role for development of the company. The organisation’s goals
and motivation are been set by leaders and managers. As they set goals for the other staff and
even motivate them to achieve those goals. Encouragement is the important point that is done by
the help of leader and manager. They encourage the other sub ordinate to work more seriously
and also to give their best so that organisation gets more production, sale would increase and
thus company would be benefitted. Reward is the main objectives of leader and manager as this
help them to encourage staffs to give best.
M&S needs to focus on its company structure, as more sub division of the department is needed.
This would help them to make their working process smoother. It also needs to focus on its
competitors; this would help them to understand their working strategy and also to overcome
them. Some other department are to be introduced by the organisation so that it customer from
other department like electronics and furniture. Focus on this area would help the company to
improve its position in the market. Thus it would make M&S world top most retail company.
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Task 2 (LO3 and LO4)
Introduction to operation of the organisation
There are various operations in an organisation which help the organisation to achieve its
objectives. Three categories of operation are there in any organisation. They are as follows:
● Inputs: This is consisted of various other factors such as labour, equipment, facilities, raw
material, time, knowledge, and skill and customers relationship. M&S progress reports
say that they handled these factors very brilliantly (Karlsson, 2016, p. 112). This is the
reason their net profit is increasing day by day. The organisation needs to focus on these
approaches during operational management. State and government are highly dependent
on the taxes being paid by the organisation but at the same time wants enterprise to
follows their laws.
● Transformation: This operation of organisation consists of some other factor such as
physical conversation, transportation, storage and inspection. Transformation is the most
operation among all the three as it converts input into a output.
● Output: This is the final stage of operation in an organisation. It is consisted of product,
service, information and experience (Smith et al. 2014, p.65). M&S strategy to follow
this factor is very unique as it has division of work. This helps input to9 convert into
output very smoothly. The company needs to earn money in order to sustain themselves
in the market and thus also focus on retaining customers.
Figure 3: Operations within organisation
(Source: Smith et al. 2014, p.65)
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Role and responsibilities of manager in operational function
Manager who are responsible for the operational function are known as operational manager.
They play an important role whether in government or private organisation. It is interdependent
with the nature and size of the enterprise. The operation manager of M&S plays a vital role as it
is a retail company so its function is very much different from other organisation. Some roles and
responsibilities of manager in operational function are as follows:
● Financial management: The budgeting, controlling and costing of M&S are been handled
with the help of operation manager. The cost of production of the chosen company is
minimised and thus get the company to earn more profit. The manager focuses on sales
report, financial statement to increase the percentage of outcome (Barnieh et al. 2014,
p.148). To improve the efficiency cost benefit analysis is been used by the managers.
● Management of resources: The managers play a vital role in handling raw material and
personnel. Hiring employees, overseeing and handling relationship of employees with the
organisation. As M&S is a big company and have large number of employees so it needs
focus on issue that are raised between employees and company. Sometimes they even set
the goals for the staff.
● Communication: Good communication and interpersonal skills are very important
element for manager as it helps the organisation to work together. M&S follows flat
organisational structure so its manager needs to be a speaker so that various department
staff gets to understand what manager wants to communicate. They help to solve the
disputes between organisation and the employees. Managers of chosen company help in
taking decision with the higher authorities of the company.
● Goal-setting: Goals and objectives are been set by manager so that employees work
together in achieving those goals. Work is been divided among various employees so that
company have smooth work function. After setting goal manager encourage and motivate
the other employees of M&S.
● Increase sale: Manager of M&S help to increase the sale for the company and thus help to
increase its profit. Gives various planning that are required to increase the sale. He even
focus on its competitors, this would help them to understand their working strategy and
also to overcome them (Papakostas et al. 2015, p.141). Promotion also comes under the
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department of manager as he would give some brilliant strategy of product promotion.
All this would help to attract more customers.
Operational approaches to operation management and value
A systematic organized company always exist with dependent to external environment. M&S
receives its raw material and then manufactures product and family sale that product as output to
the environment. Proper planning, organizing and staffing leads a company to its success. Some
of the mentioned operational approaches are as follows:
● Inputs and claimants: This includes man power, capital and managerial skills to achieve
the objectives of the organisation. Such as employees want higher pay and more benefits.
On the other side customer wants good quality of product with minimum price,
stockholders want very high returns. So organisation needs to focus on these approaches
during operational management. State and government are highly dependent on the taxes
being paid by the organisation but at the same time wants enterprise to follows their laws.
● The communication system: This is the most important phase of a operational
management as it help to communicate between organisation and other factors (Epstein
and Buhovac, 2014, p.114). A good communication with the customer is very important
as it would help to attract more customers. M&S follows flat organisational structure so
its manager needs to be a speaker so that various department staff get to understand what
manager wants to communicate. They help to solve the disputes between organisation
and the employees.
● Output: The last step of any organization is to give best quality of output. Product,
service and satisfaction of the customer are the main output of M&S. The company needs
to earn money in order to sustain themselves in the market and thus also focus on
retaining customers.
● The transformation process: Transformation process of finance, production and
marketing helps to take operational management. The operation manager of M&S plays a
vital role as it is a retail company so its function is very much different from other
organisation. Change of above mentioned factor disturbs the company to take some steps
as a slight change needs to change the whole system.
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Impact of external environment factor in decision making by leader and
manager
External environmental factor that affect in decision making have two subdivided layer such as:
1. General environment
2. Task environment
General environment consist of factors that affects in operation and decision making for the
organisation. They are as follows:
● Economic dimension: This factor focus on inflation, interest rate and unemployment.
This always stress on demand of the product such as during inflation M&S pays more for
it resources and incur a high cost (Epstein and Buhovac, 2014, p.120). Thus price of the
product increases and sale decrease. Then company faces problem to take decision
regarding this factor. When unemployment is very high than organisation gets confuse
whom to select. Thus buying power gets lower.
● Socio-cultural dimension: All socio-cultural factors must be studied by the manager or
else company will face problem during decision making. Sometimes taste of the customer
changes due to the socio-cultural issue than management gets problem to solve this
issues.
● Political dimension: This is related to the government law, relationship with government
and issue related with political party. Sometimes M&S needs to take beyond their wish
due to government rules or political pressure thus this effect in decision making.
● International dimension: Every organisation gets affected due to international
dimensions. Entry of new foreign company sometime affects a company’s decision
making as it lower down the sale (Goetsch and Davis, 2014, p.102). Pantaloons, Bare
denims affected the market of M&S by lower it sale and thus affected in decision making
for the management team.
Task environment also consist of various other factors. They are as follows:
● Competitors: Sometime due to other company or competitors organisation faces problem
in taking decisions. Thus this affected the sale of the company and hence gives more
chance of bargaining to the customer.
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● Suppliers: They supply production and raw materials to the company. It is very important
to keep good decision with the supplier or else company faces may problems in decision
making (Jeston and Nelis 2014, p.212).
● Customers: Primary goal of M&S is to satisfy the customers. During taking a decision
management team needs to focus on customer so that they would retain customer. As
customers is the main reason behind earning profit.
● Regulators: These are the people who have authority to control over policies and
practices. Management team needs to focus on this factor while taking a decision as this
would affect the policies and practice of M&S. M&S follows flat organisational structure
so its manager needs to be a speaker so that various department staff get to understand
what manager wants to communicate.
Leadership and management can improve operational efficiencies to meet
business objectives
In order to bring improvement in the operational units of the organization and attain the
predetermined business objectives, the business entities are required to implement appropriate
leadership and managerial skills. Appropriate leadership ensures timely decision making and
implementation of required management approaches with the aim of continuous improvement of
the operations of the business. From the research report it is inferred that the management of
Mark & Spencer have undertaken the process of implementing suitable leadership and
management strategies for the purpose of improving the operational efficiency of the company
aligning with the business goals and objectives (Cassidy, 2016, p. 115). ‘Leadership’ refers to the
process of implementing practical skills within the organizational framework in order to guide
and inspire the workforce towards creating operational efficiency. Through leadership
organizations aim at maximizing the its rate of efficiency and achieve the predetermined goals of
the entity. Operational efficiency is achieved by outperforming the competitors, taking bold and
decisive actions and implementing swiftness within the framework of the business. Leadership
and management approaches complement one another in the organizational background for
successful implementation of the policies and procedures determined by the management of the
company which is to be communicated across the organizational structure.
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One of the significant management approaches towards employing operational efficiency is
achieved through the process of ‘continual improvement’. This approach requires the capability
or the ability to understand and recognise various processes that creates an impact on the
organizational objectives and achievement of the goal set by the entity (Snell et al. 2015, p.185).
Further, through the management approach of continuous improvement the efficiency and the
effectiveness incorporated by the organization is measured which also provides knowledge and
information on the areas requiring attention of the leaders and the management of the business.
Conclusion and recommendation
The report concludes that M&S is one of the topmost retail company of UK, it focus to give the
customer best product with minimum price. Operational function of this company make it world
top most retail industry. There is various operations in an organisation which help the
organisation to achieve its objectives. Three categories of operation are input, transformation and
output. It is interdependent with the nature and size of the enterprise. The operation manager of
M&S plays a vital role as it is a retail company so its function is very much different from other
organisation.
M&S wants to pay more focus on the international market. It wants to open 100 new stores in
India in the end of 2017. More focus will be given on customer, staffs and supply system. It also
needs to focus on its competitors; this would help them to understand their working strategy and
also to overcome them. Some other department are to be introduced by the organisation so that it
customer from other department like electronics and furniture. Focus on this area would help the
company to improve its position in the market. It is planning to have more sponsorship in sports
and events as this would help in their brand promotion and also to increase sale.
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