Strategic Management of M&S: Analysis, Leadership Styles, and Future Sustainability

This report focuses on the strategic management of Marks & Spencer (M&S), including an analysis of M&S background information, methods of development, leadership styles of Steve Rowe and Archie Norman, a change management model for strategy implementation, and future sustainability strategies for M&S.

STRATEGIC
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
1. M&S Background information................................................................................................3
2. Methods of development.........................................................................................................3
3. Analysing and evaluating the leadership style Steve Rowe and Archie Norman at M&S......4
4. Change management model to critically examine strategy implementation at M&S.............6
5. Future sustainability strategy for M&S...................................................................................7
6. Recommendations....................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
The current report gives emphasis on strategic management of organization. Strategic
management is planning, monitoring, assessment and analysis of all strategies that can help the
firm to achieve desire outcomes. Constantly change in environment makes business to check its
strategies time to time. Selected company for report is M&S which is a retail company that
provides goods of food, clothing and home products. The present report focus on relevant
strategies of Marks & Spencer, methods of development of firm through PESTLE analysis and
Porter's five forces model, leadership styles, sustainable strategies for M&S. The report also
gives recommendation for prominent strategies.
MAIN BODY
1. M&S Background information
Marks and Spencer group is multi international company retail company that was
founded in 1884. M & S have 959 stores across the UK out of which 615 stores sells food
products. The company has become one of the best retail store. Its marketing strategies is very
common and do not differentiate from other retail outlets of UK (Perera, 2017). It does not serve
heavy competition in market. It has strategy of promoting its products on television. Its luxury
nature of foods, clothes and various home products has been strength of its company.
2. Methods of development
Organic development
The organization’s aim at Never the same again accelerated transformation and the
contribution of Ocado to the profit amounted to 38.8 million pounds which is the 50% share of
the profits of M&S (ROBUST PERFORMANCE IN UNPRECEDENTED TIMES. 2020). Half of
the outcome of the year 2020 demonstrates the resilience of the business and is positioned to
recovery. There was a strong strategic growth in the meat, fish and poultry along with the
grocery and frozen. Heavy demand for M&S range, sales participation over 25% at Ocado driven
by key segments and the synergies of M&S is on track over 5 million pounds anticipated in the
current year.
Strategic significance
In 2017, Steve Rowe laid out a 5 year transformation programme with the aim of making
M&S special again and the objective behind this is not to manage decline but to bring back M&S
to sustainable and profitable growth. The organization has implemented various strategies in

order to on the basis of objectives declared by Steve in the food and recovery in clothing
segment. In 2018, M&S profits declined under the food and clothing category which makes
Steve Rowe to insists its investors that his turnaround plan has lot of opportunities
(CHALLENGES BIG AND SMALL AND COME THROUGH THEM BY SUPPORTING EACH
OTHER AND WORKING TOGETHER. 2020). Also, the Chairman Archie Norman, made some
changes in the serval top management and appointed new directors and members at both the food
and clothing businesses. Steve Rowe and Archie Norman together presented the continuous 4
stage transformation plan.
International situation
Since the Steve Rowe became the CEO of M&S, the international business of the brand
has embarked fully on rationalisation and repositioning prior to the transformation programme
promoted by CEO and further good progress has been made (M&S INTERNATIONAL. 2020).
The aim of the organization is to build a scalable business globally, it continues to localise its
product ranges in the market. It involves a substantial rise in approximately 15 per cent of the
locally designed clothing range along with growing the Indian JV which has now nearly 77
stores. The brand is expanding using the franchise model through the strong franchise partners
and the established JV partnership.
Relation between M&S and OCADO
Ocado Retail Limited is the joint venture between the M&S and eth Ocado Group. It is
responsible for the Ocado.com and eth 2 other retail brands which are Ocado Zoom which is a 1-
hour grocery service and the other is the Fetch which is an online pet store. It is world’s one of
the largest online supermarket and having more than 50000 products which involves the full
M&S food range along with the Ocado Own label products (M&S AND OCADO BRINGING
THE BEST TOGETHER. 2020). Ocado’s innovative technology solution helps in providing
services to the customers accurately over 97% and on-time deliveries. Under this, M&S is
acquiring 50 per cent share of Ocado which is supported by the Ocado Smart Platform. This joint
venture combines the strength of M&S with its quality food with the innovation with the
Ocado’s unique technology in order to create a unique unrivalled online offer. This JV will be
traded as the Ocado.com.

3. Analysing and evaluating the leadership style Steve Rowe and Archie Norman at M&S
A leadership style is adopted within an organization is very important in respect to
providing direction along with motivating the employees in accomplishing the desired
organizational goals. There are different forms of leadership styles and based upon the case study
of M&S, the Steve Rowe's have been using authoritative leadership style in which one mobilizes
the resources in order to meet with the common objectives (Kanwal, Lodhi and Kashif, 2019).
Under this, objectives are defined but permits the individuals to work as per their needs and
wishes for coming up with the best way to accomplish the set goals. Steve Rowe decided to
reduce the organizational structure along with reshuffling of the management team (Al Khajeh,
2018). Pertaining to this, he took various initiatives like decreasing the size of the operating
committee, delegating additional responsibilities to the current and existing employees. These
actions were undertaken to achieve the simple and small team in order to make the ideas move
smoothly and efficiently. Steve Rowe has created a spirit of enthusiasm among the employees
through the way of assigning the entirely new departments and some with the additional
responsibilities. But during the time of change, Steve Rowe is making use of the two types of
leadership style which are – participative and transformational.
During the time of change and looking at the nature of the business of M&S, it is
considered important to first contact the clients which is considered to be playing a significant
role in the formation of the strategy. In order to effectively meet with the changing environment,
it becomes crucial and right to use both these strategies (Raziq and et.al., 2018). The
transformation leadership style incorporates the higher communication level in between the
organization and the staff in order to accomplish the goals. Through the use of this style, it will
help in building and retaining the trust among the employees and will consequently lead to
enhancing the performance and productivity. Under this leadership style, the leaders provide a
vision to the organization. On other side, it puts pressure on the team members which might
create a feeling of being exploited and requires constant feedback and reviews.
In participative leadership style, the leader consults with the members to share their ideas.
The leader is encouraged to come forward with the suggestions which mainly done through
persuasion and enthusiasm which consequently leads to higher job satisfaction level, better
coordination, high morale and reduction in grievances (Fiaz, Su and Saqib, 2017). Therefore,
Steve Rowe have adopted the mix of these two leadership styles which will help in bringing out

the smooth changes within the organization without affecting the performance and productivity
of the existing employees. At the same time, it also helps in increasing the motivation level of
the employees which make them work harder and efficiently (Akpoviroro, Kadiri and Owotutu,
2018). But on the other side, this style seems to be time-consuming as everyone is involved in
the decision-making process along with that security issues also arises as at the early stages
many people are involved and knows most information which might be critical at the later stage.
Thus, these two leadership style is being used in M&S in order to bring major change within the
organization.
Archie Norman implemented situational leadership style in which the leader transforms
based on the situation in order to meet with the current requirement. It can be utilized on an
immediate basis but in contrast to this, it has certain drawbacks as well like it can prove to be
ineffective in the task oriented environment (Wright, 2017). This is dependent upon the skills of
the leader and if the leader fails to possess the relevant skills then might not be able to meet with
the requirement. Archie timely analysed the change requirement and taken the steps in
introducing the change.
4. Change management model to critically examine strategy implementation at M&S
In order to analysis the changes within the company here is select change kaleidoscope
model of change. This model is help to M&S to make complete changes within the organization
as per the case study. As per the case their production cost is lower and continuous decreases as
well as their goodwill also decreases which is create negative impact on the Marks and Spencer.
For that management need to use change kaleidoscope model. Its outer ring indicates the
organization conceptual features like time, scope, preservation, diversity, capability, capacity,
readiness and power. Whereas, inner ring reflects with design choices, change path, change start
point, change style, change intervention and change role of the business in an effective manner.
Explanation of those are as follows:
Organizational contextual features: Time: in this M&S need to analysis the changes as per the time (Rosenbaum, More and
Steane, 2018). This is essential because of the reason that with passage of time there are
many different changes which M&S need to undertake in order manage and adapt to
these changes.

 Scope: in this current competitive world there are many frequent changes in the need and
preferences of the consumers. Hence, there is high scope that the that there will be much
of the changes and all these need to be implemented by M&S in order to get successful. Preservation: in that management of M&S need to make changes in their asset and
practices. Like make changes in their work process for that organize training and
development process (Jayatilleke and Lai, 2018). Diversity: In this level of group of employee and division is affect to the changes in terms
of attitude. For that management of M&S need to give time to time motivation and do
something rotational things help to make proper change. Through that all the employees
are work together. Capability: The organization competency to implement change in terms of managerial
skills and personal knowledge. For this M&S must try to maintain the capability of the
employees by providing them timely training so that the change can be managed in
effective and efficient manner. Capacity: for the changes capacity of human resource are highly increased because they
are given their hard contribution for achieve goals (Change Kaleidoscope – Change
Management Models, 2017). Readiness: at this stage employee are for accepting those changes. For M&S is of utmost
importance that they make the workforce so competitive that if any of the change comes
then they are ready to adapt to these changes in effective manner.
 Power: when employees are not done proper work then management need to use their
power. For this manager and leader of M&S need to have power so that they can help
employees to adapt to these changes in better and proper manner.
5. Future sustainability strategy for M&S
In the year 2017, M&S launched a sustainability plan called the Plan A 2025. It is an eco
and ethical programme which is ambitious and customers focused which is build on the success
of the accomplishment of the 1st ten years of the plan. It is aimed to support the 1000
communities along with helping and supporting 10 mn people living happier and healthy lives
resulting into converting M&S into a 0 waste business entity (M&S LAUNCHES PLAN A 2025 –
AN AMBITIOUS, CUSTOMER FOCUSED SUSTAINABILITY PLAN. 2017). This is a three
pillar plan which is created to handle the key issues faced by the retailer and society today. Each

of these pillars has the new commitments for instance, creating the packaging of the M&S
products widely recyclable, raising approximately £25 million for managing the cancer, heart
diseases, dementia etc. As per Steve Rowe, Plan A 2025, will help in building a sustainable
future by improving the lives of the customers along with supporting the communities. It
believes to engage all its 32 mn customers, 85 thousand colleagues and all its shareholders in the
plan for bringing the sustainable change.
6. Recommendations
From the case study it was evaluated that there were many of the problems and issues
which were faced by the company M&S. hence, for this the major problem identified were the
underperformance in food segment and the high cost retailer with inefficient supply chain. For
this the major recommendation to M&S is as follows-
 For the management of proper food and related services it is essential for M&S to focus
on the quality of the food which it is offering to the consumers. The major reason for this
is that if the quality will not be good and effective then this will not attract consumer.
Hence, for this company can focus on total quality management as this will assist the
company in managing the quality of the food and other services in proper manner.
 Further for the management of the supply chain it is essential for M&S to make use of the
latest technology in order to timely manage the inventory and supply chain. This is
essential to implement and manage the changes in effective manner as this will assist the
company in ensuring that the raw material is being supplied on time.
CONCLUSION
It can be inferred from the above that M&S has effectively managed its business and has
made it a huge retail giant. It has appropriately identified the factor which can influence the
business activities and strategy by making use of the strategic tools like Pestle. This has
supported in the development of the organization. The leadership style being used in M&S has
also assisted in effectively handling the teams and the employees in meeting with the business
objectives. The change management strategy model of Lewin being used to analyse the strategy
implementation of M&S states that the company has taken proper steps in ensuring that change
is introduced and welcomed in a positive way. M&S has taken steps in bringing sustainability
with the help of Plan A which aims at being a business that have positive impact on the well-
being of the customers, communities and the planet as a whole.

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