Context of Business: Individual Report on Marks & Spencer

This individual report provides a comprehensive analysis of Marks & Spencer (M&S), a prominent retailer. It begins with a brief history of the company, tracing its evolution from its inception to its current standing in the retail sector. The report then summarizes M&S's current business operations, including recent strategic decisions such as store closures and online food delivery initiatives. A key focus is the rationale for choosing M&S, highlighting its historical background, innovation, and brand value. The report delves into M&S's vision, leadership style, management practices, and organizational culture, utilizing theories such as the contingency theory of management and democratic leadership. It examines the impact of culture and management style on business functions and strategies, including the shift to a pyramid structure and the adoption of flexible techniques. The report concludes with recommendations for improving M&S's working culture, such as integrating decision-making, promoting teamwork, and enhancing online services. The report emphasizes the importance of sustainability and customer-centric approaches to drive future success.

CONTEXT OF BUSINESS INDIVIDUAL
REPORT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Brief history of business..............................................................................................................1
Brief summary of business...........................................................................................................1
Rationale......................................................................................................................................2
Discuss vision, leadership style, management practices and organizational culture using
theories.........................................................................................................................................2
Impact of culture and their management style on the business functions and strategies.............3
Recommendations........................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Retail sector is one of the booming sectors and with advent of globalization and
digitalization, it has turned into one of the profitable businesses. It has also found that this sector
is seeing a wide range of concepts such as organizational culture and leadership style that assist
the management practices. It is beneficial in building reputation at both the local and global
levels. This assignment is based on understanding the working practices and its related changes
in relevance to the organizational culture. Marks & Spencer is going to be considered to know
about the impact on the whole.
MAIN BODY
Brief history of business
Marks & Spencer (M&S) was established by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in the
year 1884. Michael was a refugee from Poland and Thomas was a cashier of Dewhirst in a whole
sale based enterprise together started the market stall in Leeds. The slogan was don't ask the
price, it's a penny. It opened the first Asian store in the year 1960 in Kabul Afghanistan and
gradually expanded its business into other parts of the world. For instance, Canada (1973),
France (1975) etc. This also acquired clothing company Brooks Brothers and overtook the food
chain of Kings Super Markets from USA. It also became the first retailer that paid around one
billion dollars in 1998 and since then it is reinventing and selling new products like Kellogg's
cornflakes and more.
Brief summary of business
M&S is one of the well known brands of the retail sector. Primarily it deals with clothing
in high quality with food and home products. It has recently taken a decision to close down more
than 100 stores under their radical plan by the year of 2022. In addition to this, it is functional
with approximately 960 stores all around United Kingdom and out of which, 620 are into food
products and after dropping the St. Michael from the brand, its sales has seen an elevated levels
of selling of food sales. Additionally, after reviewing the online food delivery trends which is
expected to double by 2020, M&S has launched its online food delivery services with limited
party food and alcohol options (Hunt, 2018). These changes are making their presence feel in the
retail sector.
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Rationale
The reason behind choosing M&S for conducting the research is due to its unique
historical background and progression in terms of innovation, employees' performance
management, brand worth, loyal customer base and astounding profitability. It also focuses on
maintaining the quality aspect and delivery of services to build the reputation in this sector
(TRANSFORMATION UNDERWAY, 2018). In recent times, there are several decisions that
brought radical changes and would help in understanding the conceptual frameworks of
leadership and management at M&S. Such changes led alterations in the leadership styles and
the management practices. This made the communication more reliable and open to maintain the
reputation and credibility of this company in the marketplaces at both local and global scales.
Discuss vision, leadership style, management practices and organizational culture using theories
Marks & Spencer is a well known brand and one of the oldest retailers of the United
Kingdom. It has established its name in the retail industry with consistent efforts by re-inventing.
Its vision is based on making the stores more simpler, relevant and sustainable. The focus is on
using the digital platforms to execute the operational activities and practices. In regard to the
management practices and leadership styles, this company is undergoing concrete changes that
might be able to understand through several theories such as contingency theory of management
and democratic style of leadership (Elmontsri and et.al., 2017). These help in reflecting upon the
management effectiveness and productivity of this company in fulfilling the desired objectives
and goals. Such theories also highlights the relationship between the behavioural approaches
adopted by the management and the circumstances at the workplace with the existing challenges.
It aids in gaining knowledge about the leadership styles and the adopted practices to perform
tasks.
The contingency theory of management is related to the behavioural theory of individuals
and emphasis on leading in a flexible and transparent ways. Here the variables play role in
shaping the organisational culture of M&S in the form of both dependent and independent types.
M&S has been in news for its poor organizational structure which underwent transformational
changes by adopting this theory. It depends upon the structure and the prevailing situations of the
company's environment to bring positive changes. Herein the pillars of plan A of 2025 has been
considered which consists of nourishing well being, transforming lives and communities and
caring for the planet we all share (Panuwatwanich and Nguyen, 2017). This is possible only after
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extensive consultation with employees and making them realise for establishing incremental
changes to live a healthier and happier lives. This indirectly channelise the positivity and help in
making the operations quicker and better.
However, it is also known for its sustainability aspect and has been considered as one of
the leading retailers in the world to promote the initiatives and action plans of M&S as well. The
continuous efforts have been seen through a democratic leadership style which focusses on team
work and promote collaboration and team spirit. This style assists in maintaining the workplace
culture and make the staff more responsible in fulfilling their roles and functions properly. For
instance, the team of M&S opened the first 'build and fit out' retail outlet which was completely
FSC certified in the year 2011. It was one of its kind in the entire world and opened at Ecclesall
Road, Sheffield (MARKS & SPENCER: A SUSTAINABLE VISION, 2011). This was the first step
and led the team to cooperate and open the challenges for enhancing the wood sourcing to
become the most sustainable retailer of the world.
Such desires are possible only when the employees are working in unison and under the
ethical frameworks. Moreover, the democratic style promotes inclusivity and accountability
among the staff and the management. It helps in laying the foundation of clear communication
and open end discussions to make the vision more aptly. In regard to this, it creates a better
environment to work and improve the rapport to make the working practices easier and
convenient (Crevani and et.al., 2015). The organizational culture is inter dependent on the
leadership styles and the practices undertaken to build trust, loyalty and forward thinking to
reach the goals and objectives. Moreover, these theories assist in establishing a basic foundation
to make the individuals accountable for managing helping the administration to do the good
governance. Thus, M&S has a progressive and transformational style of management to reach
the vision of bringing a new, sustainable and robust culture in completing the tasks and
operations.
Impact of culture and their management style on the business functions and strategies
Cultural aspects are in proportional relation with the management of the company. These
two elements are dependent to fulfil the specifications of the customers and reap the benefits.
Moreover, it focuses on making the employees feel more valuable and also reflect upon the
contribution of the corporate culture. This shed light on the management styles to gain an
understanding about the internationalism conceptual framework of this company. When M&S
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faced criticism about the flat structure and also it led to demonstrations about several situations
that brought them in poor light (Megheirkouni, 2016). However, with time, it has adopted
pyramid structure and taken wise decisions to promote collaborative and democratic
administration style. This structural unit led to substantial changes in context to decisions. For
instance, the managers were gve the authority to pass the information for smooth running of
operations whereas the line managers were given the role of maintaining the interpersonal
relations with the team members.
Furthermore, the company has shifted its direction towards more flexible techniques to
sustain the competition. Their strategic move to enter the home delivery provision was also a
good move in gaining insights about the customers' taste and preferences. This helped them in
managing the services and products by mitigating the risks associated with it. It has also seen
that M&S has also adopted the route of online delivery of food products that initiated from the
district of Camden Town with a minimum delivery of 10 euros. Along with this, the focus is on
enhancing the customer base by targeting them via giving more customer centric software in
both application and desktop forms (Attar and Kang, 2016 ). It also helps in gaining the attention
and also led the audience understand the clothing and formal fashion line of this company. Such
tactics helped them in maintaining the aesthetics and compassion to foster the sustainability
aspect in more organised modes.
Moreover, the adoption of different management styles such as democratic and
transformational style of leadership which proved useful and aids in knowing the trends, updates
and marketing tactics to assess and evaluate the ongoing competition. Along with this, the
functionalities of companies like M&S also gained advantages by giving a platform to their
employees to know about the intrinsic details of the company's strategic moves. Such
transparency in cultural aspects also support in fostering strong ties between the staff members
and the management with employees. In addition, the functions and operations are completed
with the cooperation from each member of the team through taking the considerations from all
the aspects to maintain the environment. Henceforth, the customer driven cultural aspects boost
the employees to be focused on the quality management to give better services and enhance the
number of consumers.
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Recommendations
This part is concerned with the changes to bring improvements in the working culture of
M&S. The prime objective is to make this company as the biggest sustainable based retailing
company. Here the decision making made must be discussed with specific authorities to fetch
important instructions and details. It would prove beneficial in making the working ethics more
integrated and inclusive (Bush, Bell and Middlewood, 2019). Moreover, this is possible through
conducting sessions and meetings on fortnightly basis to take review and feedbacks in proper
ways. The employees and the management share a complicated nature of working styles and
mostly come across each other. It must be overcome only through flexible approach in
maintaining the relations and promote team work and collaboration as well. Earlier the
leadership style adopted was not in the lines of democratic nature and thus, it has been re-
structured to make it more open, reliable and transparent.
In addition to this, this company is going online and trying to build its customer base to
make its reach more widespread. They must adopt a more secured and safe software to conduct
the transactions in context to the loyalty scheme. Moreover, they should try to start joint ventures
with the online grocers like Ocado and more. Additionally, they must take reviews and feedbacks
from the customers and also add about the benefits like discounts or refunding to build mutual
trust and accountability (McCauley-Smith and et.al., 2015). This would help M&S to reach their
customers as well and enhance the profitability and revenues. Nevertheless, they must also try to
make the layouts of the sores more customer friendly to help the new customers in gaining
knowledge about the available services and products. It is possible when the teams work in multi
disciplinary framework and share the knowledge and technical expertise to optimise the
resources.
CONCLUSION
It has been summarised that retaining sector is gaining profits in forward direction and
the road to success is defined through management pathway. Herein, Marks & Spencer has been
playing a crucial role in bringing radical changes through promoting sustainability and
transformational way of managing things at the workplace. This supported in better employees'
engagement and improved the performance in terms of value, reputation and profits.
Furthermore, the implementation of contingency theory of management and democratic style of
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leadership has given insights to gain an understanding about the organizational culture at the
chosen company. Thus, it is important to maintain the organizational culture in effectual ways.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Attar, M. and Kang, K., 2016, January. Organisational culture and the use of knowledge-based
engineering systems in saudi industrial firms. In 27th IBIMA Conference. IBIMA.
Bush, T., Bell, L. and Middlewood, D. eds., 2019. Principles of Educational Leadership &
Management. SAGE Publications Limited.
Crevani, L. and et.al., 2015. Leadership cultures and discursive hybridisation: On the cultural
production of leadership in higher education reforms. International Journal of Public
Leadership. 11(3/4). pp.147-165.
Elmontsri, M. and et.al., 2017. Status of patient safety culture in Arab countries: a systematic
review. BMJ open. 7(2). p.e013487.
McCauley-Smith, C. and et.al., 2015. Making sense of leadership development: developing a
community of education leaders. Studies in Higher Education. 40(2). pp.311-328.
Megheirkouni, M., 2016. Leadership development methods and activities: content, purposes, and
implementation. Journal of Management Development. 35(2). pp.237-260.
Panuwatwanich, K. and Nguyen, T.T., 2017. Influence of organisational culture on total quality
management implementation and firm performance: evidence from the vietnamese
construction industry. Management and Production Engineering Review. 8(1). pp.5-15.
Online
Hunt, A., 2018. M&S Launching Online Food Delivery Service. [Online].Available
through:<https://www.womanandhome.com/life/news-entertainment/marks-and-spencer-
online-food-delivery-206519/>.
MARKS & SPENCER: A SUSTAINABLE VISION. 2011. [Online].Available
through:<https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/marks-spencer-sustainable-vision>.
TRANSFORMATION UNDERWAY, 2018. [Pdf].Available
through:<https://corporate.marksandspencer.com/annual-report-2018/
mands__plan_a_2018.pdf>.
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