Supply Chain Management of Marks and Spencer

SUPPLY CHAIN
MANAGEMENT

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Supply chain relationship of Marks and Spencer. Information systems and outsourcing at
Maria's and Spencer................................................................................................................3
Supply chain sustainability of Marks and Spencer.................................................................6
Ways to enhance supply chain management relationships of Marks and Spencer................7
Supply chain risk reduction by Marks and Spencer...............................................................8
Actions taken by Marks and Spencer to enhance supply chain sustainability.......................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFRENCES.................................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Supply chain management is defined as a complex arrangement of business firms, individuals,
activities, information, resources and process involved in supplying a product or service to a
consumer. Supply chain management is the management of supply chain activities in order to
increase consumer value and profitability. The business firm selected for this report is Marks and
Spencer. M&S is a British retail organisations which is headquartered in London UK. The
company sells wide variety of products which include homeware, clothing, food and groceries.
The company has outlets in 1463 global locations. In order to meet consumer demands in a
timely manner, the respective company has built a large supply chain which spans
internationally. This report includes information about supply chain relationship, information
systems and supply chain sustainability of the company. In addition to this ways for improving
supply chain relationship and sustainability are provided in this report. Risk mitigation measures
used by management of Marks and Spencer are also provided in this report.
MAIN BODY
Supply chain relationship of Marks and Spencer. Information systems and outsourcing at Maria's
and Spencer.
It is essential to keep relationship at the centre of supply chain management as it helps businesses
create more collaborative and supportive supply chains. Relationship with various members of
the supply chain play a vital role in its success on a long term and short term basis. Marks and
Spencer ensures creation and maintenance of effective relationship with various members of
their supply chain (Banerjee and Mishra, 2017)
. This helps the company create dynamic supply chain process and quickly respond to consumer
demands. Supply chain relationship of Marks and Spencer are provided below:
Relationship with the suppliers

Suppliers at the core of supply chain management. In order to build effective relationship with
the supplier key components considered by business firms are collaborative spirit, identical
views about the future, effective and honest communication (Chen and Kitsis, 2017)
. In context of the respective company, the firm has contracted with 400 suppliers who supply
wide range of food items to the company from more than 800 production sites (Supply chain
management, 2021). In case of homeware and clothing, the company outsources these products
from 1000 manufacturing plants all over the globe with India, China, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and
Vietnam being top countries by the number of suppliers (Supply chain management, 2021). In
order to maintain effective relationship with the suppliers M&S has taken various measures such
as providing training to suppliers about such as using an independent organisations Advantage
mirror report to measure supplier satisfaction and gain their insight about performance of the
company. In addition to this, M&S gains feedback from supplier about challenges faced by them
during working with the firm. This helps the company forge trustworthy and cooperative
relationship with their suppliers. The firm is able to continuously in motive supplier relationship
with the help of feedbacks for the mutual benefit of suppliers and the company (Das, 2018)
.
Relationship with technological service provider Smooth flow of information throughout the
Supply chain is important for effective functioning of the supply chain and assists businesses
with supply chain management. Maintaining effective and collaborative relationships with
technological service provider is an important part of supply chain relationship. In context of
Marks and Spencer, the main technological service provider of the company is Tata consultancy
services. TCS has helped enhance digital aspects of the company. In addition to this TCS is
helping the company adopt applied machine learning in a predictive way rather than reactive
way. M&S evaluates relationship with technological provider on the basis of ROI. M&S has
established strong partnership with TCS as they deliver effective ROI (Derwik and Hellström,
2017)
.
Relationship with legislative authorities
The involvement of regional, national and international legislative authorities in various parts of
the supply chain is undeniable. It is important for business organisation to maintain effective
relationship with various legislative authorities in order to conduct their business in a lawfully