Strategic Management: Developing Competitive Position in a Challenging Business Scenario

This article discusses the importance of strategic management in developing a competitive position in a challenging business scenario. It focuses on the case of Marks and Spencer, a leading retail company in the UK, and analyzes the internal and external opportunities and strengths of the company. The article also explores the strategy development of Marks and Spencer using the Ansoff Matrix.

Strategic Management
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Introduction
Strategic management is considered as the key to develop the competitive business
position in a fierce competitive landscape. The effective strategic development provides the
companies to develop their strengthen position in a challenging business scenario. The
companies look forward to achieve the competitive advantage by meeting their goals and
objectives. Strategic management provides the platform to enable their potential activeness to
work as per the business demands. The main purpose of the study is to develop the
understanding regarding the key issues faced by the multinational companies in order to
develop their strategic decisions and strengthening their competitive position in current
business scenario.
Marks and Spencer has achieved the leading position in the UK retail market and
strengthened their competitive position in a secured way. However, the extensive and
continuous growth in the retail market has been imposing threats to the existing retail
supermarket chains. Therefore, there is the continuous need for assessing the internal and
external business opportunities. The further sections of the study will thus analyse these
opportunities and present the significance of strategic management. The identification of the
potential challenges will lead to develop the effective strategic decisions that can sustain the
competitive position of the company in a competitive business scenario.
Company Overview
Marks and Spencer has been known as the leading retail company in UK. The
company has maintained the remarkable profit revenue since its establishment in offering
high quality food, clothes, and home appliances. Almost 65,000 employees have been serving
for M&S currently and they are much dedicated to perform their organisational
functionalities in almost 450 stores. The amount of food sales has accounted for almost
49.8%, which has captured almost 4.3% of the overall market share in UK retail industry.
Considering such steady growth in the market share, the company is looking forward to
develop its strategic decisions to retail the competitive position against emerging retail
companies. The following section of the study will thus concentrate on the internal and
external market of M&S to review the business potentiality based on which the company will
determine the business growth.
Part A: 1) Internal and External Opportunities and Strengths

The identification of the internal and external market provides the clear
understanding of the strengths and weakness of the company to deal with the external
opportunities and threats. Marks and Spencer is the leading retail chain in UK retail industry
that has been focusing on enhancing the value proposition to gather more customer base. The
internal market analysis of the company is presented below:
TOWS Matrix of M&S:
The analysis of the internal strengths and opportunities provides the idea of the
business potentiality to operate in the competitive market. The TOWS Matrix is generally
used for generating, comparing, and selecting the suitable strategies. Despite being the
similar roots as SWOT, TOWS matrix goes beyond the general description of business
strengths and opportunities. This technical tool creates the trade-off between the external and
internal factors. The TOWS matrix consists of four potential strategies that help in deriving
the importance of the business. The strategies are as follows:
Figure 1: TOWS Matrix
(Source: )
Strength and Opportunities (SO):

The first element of TOWS Matrix is the strength and opportunities. According to (),
this matrix signifies how well a company has been utilising its strength to exploit the market
opportunities. The major strength of the company is the brand identity. It has been observed
that the product variation of M&S is the source of customer attention. The current trends in
the competitive market solely depend on the larger customer base. The high quality product
offered by M&S thus creates the greater impact on customers’ mind. The increasing demands
of the global techniques ensuring the opportunities for earning more profitability. Therefore,
M&S can utilise their brand image to deliver high quality diversified products to avail this
opportunity.
Strengths and Threats (ST):
The next element of TOWS Matrix is Strength and Threats. It generally depicts that
how efficiently the company has been utilising the strengths to overcome the potential
threats. In case of Marks and Spencer, it has been observed that the potential threat is to deal
with the fierce and emerging competitiveness all across the business landscape. The effective
brand quality, diversified products, and advanced technological process utilised by the
company work as the weapon to deal with such potential threats. However, it is still
necessary for the company to develop their promotional activities more effectively to
participate in the continuously changing competitive scenario.
Weakness and Opportunities (WO):
The third element of TOWS Matrix is weakness and opportunities, which generally
shows how the company has been utilising the market opportunities to overcome challenges
faced due to their weaknesses. The major weakness of the company is the negative publicity
as non-trendy stores. Moreover, the company has been using the manual working method,
which is a traditional system. However, the current competitive market has been providing
the opportunities to M&S to adopt the latest trends and technologies that can help in securing
their competitive position. Moreover, the opportunity to get access to the latest technologies
is also enhancing scope for more international marketing.
Weakness and Threats (WT):
The last element of TOWS Matrix is weakness and threats. This element suggests that
the company requires to minimise their weaknesses to overcome the threats. The major
weakness of the company is the lack of proper promotional methods. The company requires

developing their promotional method and adopt the latest trends to gather the customer
supports. It will help in participating in the competitive landscape.
The above analysis provides the clear idea that the effective brand image and the
product variations are the major strength of the company. However, the company still
requires managing their promotional process since it has been following the traditional
method. The negative publicity regarding the old trendy stores and the manual working
procedure can affect the profitability parameter since the market competition has been
increasing at a greater pace.
Part A: 2) Strategy Development of Marks and Spencer
Considering such continuous pace of market competition, Marks and Spencer requires
focusing on developing the future strategic movement more cautiously. The continuous thrive
for the innovations has been leading the emerging global companies to utilise the effective
business strategies. M&S is also concentrating on developing their strategic decisions in a
more appropriate way to overcome the challenges and eliminating their weaknesses.
Therefore, the development of the ansoff matrix will be best suited for the company to
develop their strategic decisions against the extensive competitiveness.
Ansoff Matrix:
It has been observed that the high quality products and the extensive product choices
are the major strengths for M&S. Therefore, it is important for the company to develop the
ground on which these strengths would be considered as the key to achieve the competitive
advantage in the current business landscape. Ansoff Matrix helps in building understanding
about the product and market development procedures to secure the competitive edge.

Figure 2: Ansoff Matrix
(Source: )
Ansoff matrix is a strategic tool that develops the ideas about the four major areas of a
company to build their competitive edge. The first stage is Market Penetration. According to
(), market penetration is one kind of growth strategy, which makes the businesses inclined
towards the existing market. Marks and Spencer needs to focus on market penetration more
specifically as it helps in increasing the market share. The company can develop their
competitive pricing strategies or they can even promote their brands by investing more
resources. The company mainly believes in personal selling, which is a key-point of
managing their promotional activities. For example, The Clothing retails of M&S has been
serving a larger number of customers all across UK and Europe. The personal selling method
of the high quality clothes to the customers are increasing their ‘word of mouth’ in a
remarkable way.
The next segment is product development, which is a business strategy developed for
selling the existing products into a new market. This segment is quite opportunistic for the
business companies since it leads them exploring the new market segments, the different

product features of the competitors as well as the geographic locations. Marks and Spencer
needs to utilise such strategy while operating outside UK market. For example, while
operating in Dubai or China, the company may receive the opportunity to explore the cultural
diversification to ensure product growth.
Product Development is another segment of this matrix that set the business aims to
introduce new product into an existing competitive market. It is quite important for the
company to introduce new techniques and build competencies that can appeal for greater
customer attention. For example, the financial services introduced by Marks and Spencer can
be the breakthrough for competing in an existing market with new product or service. This
strategic movement can be beneficial if the company succeeds in promoting their financial
services and ensure the greater customer experience in this segment.
Product Diversification is the last but not the least. Product diversification can be
considered as more risky than other segments. It is a process of entering in a market in which
the company has little or almost no experience. In order to implement this strategy, the
company must have gathered the clear vision and proper risk assessment plan. It has been
observed that Marks and Spencer has developed their strengthened position in almost 40
countries outside UK. Therefore, the product diversification strategy is quite feasible for the
company to develop their customer base by operating in a diverse cultural place.
Considering these specific factors, it can be stated that Marks and Spencer requires
concentrating more on their promotional activities. The enhancements of the repetitive
competition is driving the business competitors to achieve excellence. It is thus quite
important for M&S to develop their diversified and innovative culture that can create a
positive and influential factors for new strategy development. It is even important for the
company to identify the right people with adequate skills that can help in implementing the
strategic decision more appropriately. Launching new product or services require developing
the promotional method in a significant way. Therefore, the company requires adopting the
latest technologies to gain access to the innovative business techniques. The expansion of the
products and services can thus perform as the key to achieve business goals. It is necessary
for M&S to identify the opportunity to create the sustainable position in a competitive
business market. Moreover, it is also important for the company to develop their corporate
strategy to add more values and establish the customer base. The identification of the growth
prospects can help in foreseeing the future development of the business landscape in a

globalised business scenario. Therefore, the company requires overcoming the challenges by
utilising more innovative strategies to win over its competitors.
3) Reflection on the strategy process model
The in –class workshops have made me understand how to make a strategy process
model. From the online learning activities, I have learnt that the strategy planning model
should be efficient and selected on the basis of its suitability. In the model, I have highlighted
on the past hindsight, the present insights and the future foresights. The past hindsight has
been used to reflect on the past experiences with the staff morale and motivation, culture and
history and evaluation of the mission, the goals, the objectives and the results. In the present
insight, the internal and the external factors have been projected. Along with it, the strengths
and the weaknesses also have been elaborated. On the other hand, in the future foresight, the
process of strategy formation, the selection, the implementation and the review takes place.
Overall, this model has helped me to pursue the strategic management for the organization.

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