Debenhams Case Study: Business Development, Strategies, and Challenges

This case study analyzes Debenhams, a leading UK department store, examining its business strategies, market research, and challenges. It covers primary and secondary research methods, ethical considerations, and the application of frameworks like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The study delves into Facebook's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, alongside discussions on diversity in the workplace and cost management strategies. It provides insights into Debenhams' market position, financial performance, and the impact of various business decisions, offering a comprehensive understanding of the company's operations and challenges.

DEBENHAMS
Name
Subject
Date

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Primary research..............................................................................................................................3
Ethical concern................................................................................................................................4
Secondary research..........................................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................5
Appendices......................................................................................................................................6

Case study 1
Introduction
Debenhams is one of the leading department stores of the United Kingdom with a turnover of
around £2bn with over 140 departmental stores and also has 40 franchised stores all over the
world. The company enjoys a considerable online presence. The original Debenhams store is
based in London and was founded in 1913. The company still uses it for their communications
and press activities. In 1928, the acquisitions of the Harvey Nichlos and Brown stores were seen
to follow and the company was listed on the stock market. The department store was seen to
expand rapidly and was bought by private consortium in 2003. Debenhams is seen to have top
four markets share in men’s wear, women’s wear and an estimate of ten shares in children’s
wear. Further, it is a pioneer in the market of premium health and beauty. Today, Debenhams is
available in almost 70 countries is considered to be the eleventh biggest UK online retailer on the
basis of the traffic volume.
Primary research
The primary market research can prove out to be an important method for gathering information
regarding the service idea and the views of the customers (Glass, G. V. (1976). The organization
will get the perspectives from the customers and can easily determine the demand of the products
and the customers. The focus groups can easily help in obtaining the detailed information
regarding the group and personal feeling, their opinions and perceptions. The focus group also
helps in saving time and money as compared to the interviews on individual basis that are being
conducted. The focus group will be beneficial in providing a broader range of information from
all the participants (Kitzinger, J., 1994).

The questionnaire is practical and helps in accumulating a large amount of information from a
larger number of people in a very short span of time. The whole process is highly cost effective.
This method has a limited affect to the reliability and validity. Furthermore, the results are
quantified easily using the software software package or by the researcher. This method will
allow them to obtain relevant and current data which will help with planning the development
and marketing strategies for the food division.
Ethical concern
The people who would be studying the research and are involved with it must be taken prior
permission. Nothing that would cause emotional or physical harm to the subjects would be
practiced. The sensitivity or the difficulty of the questions would be controlled. The research
must be fair and will consider personal biases and personal opinions.
Secondary research
The organization can also look out in the successful organizations and their successful stories.
Various cases and findings will assist the organization to look into the matter. The organization
can look into company website, marketing research reports, magazine articles and other sources.
The organization can gather information from sources that are external to the marketer and can
easily access material from the market research carried out by some other organization and from
old sales report. The organization can also look into the accounting records of the companies so
as to look at their growth after expansion (Stewart, D. W., & Kamins, M. A., 1993).

Case Study 2
Strengths of Facebook
The social networking site has more than a billion monthly users who are highly active. The
organization further understands the need and behaviour of its users and comes up with new and
creative ideas to engage them. Furthermore, the social networking site enjoys excellent users’
experience (Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C., 2007).
Weakness of Facebook
There are now so many adverts on there that its users are less likely to pay them any attention.
Further, the social networking site has a weak CTR of advertisements and also lacks the website
customization. Most of the users of Facebook have complained of spending a considerable
amount of time on the website. These users want the social media website to reflect their
personalities. However, they are unable to customize the website as per the needs of the users
and a uniform template is forced for all their users. As compared to the Facebook, the Google+ is
seen to allow for much more personalization of the social network account (Dwyer, C., Hiltz, S.,
& Passerini, K., 2007).
Opportunities of Facebook
The website relies heavily on the advertising as one of the major source of income, with over 1
billion active monthly users; the website is seen to exploit other opportunities for attracting the
money. The website is in a strong position to open a Facebook marketplace, in case it is
successful, the Facebook would be able to bring more revenues as compared to advertising
which will boost the future prospects and growth of the company (Stumpel, M., 2013).

Threats to Facebook
The model of Facebook has been threatened due to growing adblocks as the users are not able to
see the advertisements and unintentionally click on them.
Furthermore, the identity thefts are very common due to which Facebook is facing bad reputation
due to its inability of protecting the private information for its users.
Case Study 3
Analysing David’s situation according to this famous theory is useful to understanding which
needs the job meets and which it does not. David’s behaviour will be assesses on the basis of his
needs, as per the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. He has adjusted his behaviour as per the
satisfaction of his needs. As per Maslow, there are five types of human needs which are arranged
in a hierarchical manner as per their priority and importance. As one set of need is satisfied, that
particular level creases to be a motivating factor for the person. That person begins to look
motivation in the other set of needs. The five level of needs as per the priority are physiological
needs, security needs, social needs, esteem needs and self-actualizing needs (Maslow, A. H.,
1943).
He is able to sustain his life and is able to afford food, shelter, rest, water, air, sleep, clothing and
sexual satisfaction. These needs with the highest priority over other needs cannot be prolonged
for long and David has met all this physiological needs. As these physiological needs are
satisfied to the considerable amount of extent, Davis is motivated towards gaining other needs.
As these are directly linked with the psychological fear of loss of job, hazards, property, David
has been provided sufficient protection from such types of fear due to his secure position at job.

These needs are met due to high salary. Therefore, the security needs have ceased to be his
priority and he looks forward to the other set of needs.
. He being a human being is a social animal and therefore he desires to stay with a group. He is
not provided with the sense of belonging and is not provided with enough sense of love and
affection from his team mates and managers. He is not loved by any of his company members
and therefore does not have sufficient social needs. Therefore, David aims towards fulfilling his
social needs and wants to be appreciated, loved and respected among his fellows.
Due to lack of respect and appreciation by the others and he does not enjoy self-respect or
competence neither he is able to relate to any status or recognition in the company, therefore his
esteem needs are not met.
The desire of becoming what he is capable of becoming is denied to him therefore his self-
actualizing needs are not met. He is not able to utilise his potential to the maximum extent
possible and his desire of becoming what he dreams of accomplishing is not fulfilled. Therefore
he is not able to fulfil his need.
Therefore, Davis is not in a good position and is aiming to fulfil his social, esteem and self-
actualizing needs. He aims to make friends with his team members and managers and is looking
forward to attain his esteem needs as well. For this he has to broaden his friends circle, and needs
to be appreciated for his work and efforts. As he lacks the chances of personal growth, he is
struck in the company and is only enjoying the high salary which satisfies his security and
psychological needs.

Case Study 4
Diversity can be considered as a commitment towards appreciating and recognising the variety
of characteristics where every individual feel unique in the working environment thereby
promoting and celebrating the collective and individual achievement. The diversity in the
workplace considers everyone to be a unique person. Although the people are seen to have
everything in common but it must be considered that everyone is different in their own way. All
the personal characteristics on the basis of race, gender, disability, sex, reassignment, pregnancy,
civil partnership, religion and beliefs, age, sexual orientation etc are seen to be covered by the
discrimination law so as to provide protection to the people against being treated unfairly.
Therefore it is clear that the diversity at the workplace must have high tolerance of various
unique aspects of the working individuals within the working environment.
The organization must recognize a ‘one-size-fits-all’ model and approach for managing the
people who are seen to have issues with achieving fairness and equality for opportunity for each
and every individual. The organization has different personal values, needs and beliefs. The
people management practices must be able to fulfil the demand of the people propositions that
are seen to be consistently fair and are seen to have flexible and inclusive manger which are seen
to support the business needs.
Diversity management is basically a process which is intended for maintaining and creating a
positive working environment where all the difference and similarities of the employees are
highly valued. This type of working environment is helpful reaching their potential and for
maximizing the contribution towards the strategic objectives and goals of the organization.
The workforce diversity can easily be related to the equal employment opportunity where the
individuals belonging from colour, race, sex, religion and national origin will be kept on the

same scale without any discrimination. Furthermore, the workforce can also be subjected to
education, teaching, sexual orientation and differences, tenure, abilities, difference in values,
personality etc. Therefore, the working environment must aim towards maximizing the potential
of the employees and the organization in turn feels that it is recruiting the best employees which
results in greater revenue, profits and job security (DiTomaso, N., Post, C., & Parks-Yancy, R.,
2007).
Budgens could do the same by providing training opportunities for black people to reach senior
positions within the supermarket business. This would encourage more people from a diverse
range of backgrounds to apply, while making sure merit (talent) is still the criteria for
appointment into jobs (Cox Jr, T., 2001).

Case Study 5
Buying unwanted space and products leads to overhead expense which was not tied directly
towards selling any service or product. This leads to high overload expenses which in turn hurts
the cash flow of the business. Because of being highly persistent, the high overhead expenses are
very challenging. The solution is to audit all the expenses and cut back on wherever possible.
Robert needs to consider that over-cutting might lead to hurting the company and therefore he
needs to consider the cheaper options and he should audit his expenses regularly for ensuring
that every overhead expense stays in the line.
Sometimes he might sell his products and services at a comparative lower prices which leads to
low and even negative gross margins. This usually happens in the case of competitive
environment. Therefore, Robert needs to audit all the products and services for determining the
all-inclusive cost for delivering the products. He can then raise the price of the product and
services having weak margins and can even ensure that all the proposals must price their
products as per their cost.
Additionally, Robert must engage himself in cash flow forecast. This will help him in seeing the
time periods where he can expect a cash deficit and the periods where his company will expect a
surplus profit. This is one of the best ideas for tracking down the amount of cash being going in
the business and how much is expected for the survival.
Robert must not add too many customers quickly. This will lead to major cash flow problems in
case too many customers are added and can be hard for Robert. This will lead to elimination of
the operating deficit. He should use financing for covering up the cash flow gap until he finds
himself to be in a financially strong position. He can use a line of credit, factoring, business load
and even an asset-based loan (Lewellen, J., & Lewellen, K., 2014).

Additionally, he should be careful while taking a very large order as it might take too many
resources from the organization. In case of lack of resources, the organization might face critical
issues. Therefore Robert needs to be careful while taking up the order and can get term credit for
his vendors. He can also train his employee and staff to suggest the related service or a costly
option for the service, the customer has been requesting for.
Cash flows are high professional and complex and therefore require a professional accountant in
order to assist a proper functioning of the organization.