Retail Theory and Practice: M&S Fashion Clothing Market Changes Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the fashion clothing market, particularly within the UK context, examining critical shifts influenced by technological advancements, the rise of e-commerce, and the growing emphasis on sustainability. The study focuses on the impact of these changes on organizations like Marks & Spencer (M&S), evaluating their responses through various strategies such as incentives, cultural value redefinition, and workforce adjustments. The report delves into the tactics employed to mitigate market impacts, including training programs, budget planning, and recruitment strategies. Furthermore, it explores how organizations can adapt to maintain performance and profitability in a dynamic market environment, emphasizing the importance of understanding consumer behavior and adapting to emerging trends. The report also highlights the importance of data management, quality standards, and sustainable practices within the fashion industry.

Retail Theory and Practice

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Key Changes in Fashion Clothing Market...................................................................................1
Response of Organization for Change Process............................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8
5 Effective Change Management Strategies. 2017. [Online]. Available Through.
<https://www.businessmapping.com/blog/5-effective-change-management-strategies/>..............8

INTRODUCTION
Organizational Change is a process of changing in organizational strategies, procedures,
processes, technologies and company environment (Autor, Dorn and Hanson, 2016). It is most
important processes for an organization. This study will be considering organizational changes in
Marks & Spencer which is one of well known clothing company that was established in year
1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in Leads, UK. M & S is working over 1463
locations around world. This study is identifying various changes in UK fashion clothing market
that are important for organization to keep effective performance in the target market. Different
strategies, tactics and processes to make business effective in target market as per current trends.
MAIN BODY
Key Changes in Fashion Clothing Market
There are various changes has been observed in fashion clothing sector in UK which can
affect whole market related to the industry (Glasserman and Nouri, 2016). These changes in
United Kingdom clothing market are related to technology, product specification, services,
business procedures and business environment. These changes are need to be considered in the
order to understand the fashion clothing market more efficiently.
Technological Changes
Technological changes are frequent and the impact of these changes is also high on the
fashion clothing market. The reason behind these changes is updates in technology or invention
of new technology. The impact of these changes are both positive impact on complete industry.
Technology can play main role in influencing these consumers of fashion clothing market. Some
of the technologies like Artificial intelligence, virtual reality and augmented reality can change
whole buying process of the consumer. In the retail sector and specially in clothing sector
industry technologies like Augmented reality is more effective. This technology can be used to
provide better buying experience to the consumer (Tidd and Bessant, 2018). By this technology
consumers can check the combination of different cloths and accessories in augmented reality
which is combination of augmented and mix reality. This can help the consumer to make
effective buying decision about selection of clothes. This is how Virtual and Augmented reality
is one of the most important change for fashion clothing market. This process also can be taken
as staff free or cashier-less stores. In this process customers have better opportunity to make their
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experience much better and personalised (Becher, Walkling and Wilson, 2017). The cash less
process in stores can reduce the issued that are related to billing and financial management.
Fast Fashion
fast fashion is major factor for fashion clothing market. With high accessibility to internet
has changed the fashion clothing market completely. With involvement of internet in fashion
industry it is growing faster, customer are more aware of change in the fashion trends in the
market. This awareness of people force the whole market to develop concept of fast fashion in to
meet the demands of customers related to the fashion clothing. This is really difficult for the
industry to meet the changes of the fashion trends in global market. The trends of the market
place are changing much faster and it is not possible for the fashion clothing market to produce
clothing as per change in fashion trends.
E-Commerce
This can be also considered as online shopping process where customers can directly buy
product form online website of company (Matas, Raymond and Dominguez, 2017). People
prefers online shopping over physical shopping because it is more cost and time efficient. E-
Commerce is major change for the fashion clothing market. It also has increased the competition
in the United Kingdom fashion clothing market. The consumer shopping behaviour has changed
with the implementation of E- Commerce. This change in behaviour of people has changes the
business in the whole fashion clothing industry. Compared to previous years customer are
preferring online shopping over traditional way of shopping. There are more options are
available to customer from the international market and this is negative for the UK fashion
clothing market because it can reduce the effectiveness of UK market for customers.
Data and Information Management
As per the traditional concept of business management and operation management
process include various complex process that can slow down the services of the company.
Record keeping is one of the most important process for the organizations because it can help
them to make effective decisions and strategies to improve their performance in the target
market. This data also can help them to keep tack on the customer purchase behaviour to
improve their performance in clothing sector. This can be more improved by making effective
changes in the information system of retail store and implementing various safety and security to
prevent the data breach or privacy breach in information system. There are different technologies
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of data and information processing are also trending in the international market. This data and
information management technologies are used in the fashion clothing sector to analyse the
complete time take in production and transactions products to develop better understanding of
the market place. Technologies like data mining can be used to find various sales and purchase
pattern of consumer to predict the future of the fashion market and this technology can improve
the stability in fashion clothing market.
Quality Standards including Sustainability
for the fashion clothing industry this is important to improve and maintain quality
standards with concept of sustainability. Customer are more aware of environmental
sustainability. There are different change trending in this sector that are related to the use of
sustainable raw material production of cloths. There are different sustainable and biodegradable
fiber are invented that can be used in the fashion clothing industry to develop processes which
are sustainable for environment. For example orange fibers and algae apparel are sustainable
fiber that can help the industry to make sustainable clothing. This concept of sustainable clothing
can change complete scenario of fashion market. Initial this will be difficult for fashion clothing
industry to make related develop whole market of sustainable clothing.
Response of Organization for Change Process
According to different changes that occur in the clothing market it is important for the
organization to respond efficiently in order to keep their business running efficiently in the target
market. The changes that occur in clothing market are related to technology, culture, demand and
business environment. Response of the organization could be of different type. This response of
company depends upon type of change occurred in the market place.
Strategies to Mitigate the Impact of Market Change on organization
Some of main strategies that are used by organization are-
Propose incentive- in this condition organization provide incentives to the employees to give
their best in order to meet change requirement. These incentives can encourage them to perform
effective with new changes in organization. The impact of market change is negative on
organization. It can increase pressure on employees of organization. To keep performing
efficiently in market place M & S can provide extra benefits to their employees I form of
incentives to improve their motivation level and encourage them to perform efficiently in order
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to meet all the requirements of changed market scenario. This how incentives can be provided to
the employees to maintain high performance standard in organization.
Redefine Cultural values- There are some cultural values that are followed by organization to
maintain high performance in business procedure. By making changes in cultural values M & S
can develop effective culture to handle change of the market place. The role of organization
culture is important to manage effective environment on work place. To meet the changes of the
market place this is important for organization to redefine their culture as per changes in the
market place to keep performing with effective high marginal profit in market place with
changed market conditions.
Exercise Authority- In this process senior leader and manager of Marks & Spencer play their role
more care fully to make positive impact on the employees (Bataa, Izzeldin and Osborn, 2016).
This is also their role to command the employees to adapt change in operational processes. With
change in the market scenario there are various changes are need to be implemented in the
organization to keep performance of organization effective in the market place. In this case this
is important for the leader and manager of the organization to use their authority to ensure the
effective change implementation process in organization. This also their responsibility to use
their position to reduce the resistance to change by employees.
Reduce Work Load-The burden related to the change is also shifted by the management of the
organization to provide opportunity to the employees to learn more about particular change that
occurs in target market. This reduced work load also can motivate employees to learn changes
more effectively (Matas, Raymond and Dominguez, 2017). The work pressure on employees
increases with the change occur in the market place. This extra work pressure can reduce the
efficiency of employees. By reducing work load can provide them opportunity to them in order
to learn more about the change in the market and work accordingly.
Recruitment- Change market place can force the organization to improve the capabilities of their
work force to meet new standards to meet market demands. For example, the technological
changes that occur in market place can force the organization to make respective change in their
current technology. To operate new implemented technology organization may need highly
educated and trained staff. This need of skilled and educated staff can be full filled by
recruitment process. By this process organization will be able to meet technological standard of
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market place. To meet requirements related to change organization also can recruit different
people who full fill the skills that are required to over come the challenges of market change.
These are some strategies that can be used by the M & S to manage change with in
organization (5 Effective Change Management Strategies. 2017). All this strategy will help
organization to reduce the negative impact of implementing change in organization
Tactics to Mitigate the Impact of Market Change on organization
Training- The employees of organization can be provided with efficient training to develop their
skills regarding change in the market. Employees of organization can be trained with new
technologies in order to reduce the impact of change on performance and operations of
organization (Piercy, 2016). Training and develop are most important processes that can be used
by the organization manage their performance in the market place. With change in market place
there are different change are introduced by leaders of organization. These trainings and
development sessions can be used by organization to train their employees for different
operations and processes that are important to meet the change in marketplace to maintain the
performance of organization in target market. For example, sustainable clothing is major change
for the market place. In this process there are different biodegradable fibers are used to make
cloths and other fashion products. To produce sustainability clothing and fashion products this is
important for the organization to make relevant changes in processing of cloths to produce a
complete product. This is a major procedural change for company. This major procedural change
can force the organization to train their employees for new procedure of producing clothing and
fashion products. This is how by providing effective training to their staff organization can
reduce the negative impact of market change over organizational performance.
Budget Planning- Market change also can affect the economic stability of organization. By
making an effective financial plan organization can reduce the negative economic impact on
organization. With the change in the market place there are various changes are need to be
implemented in organization in operations (Tidd and Bessant, 2018). To meet the operational
demands this is important for organization to invest some financial capital to manage change. To
reduce the negative impact of change in market this is important for M & S to make effective
financial budget which is efficient to minimise overall budget of the company in the change
implementation process. Effective budgeting process will also help the management of the
organization to develop business plan with minimum risk.
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Build Management Support- To mitigate the impact of market change organisation can develop a
management support system to avoid the operational and management failure in organization.
Effective system developed by leader and managers can reduce the negative impact of market
change on organization (Glasserman and Nouri, 2016). To manage the organizational
performance in the market place organization can develop an efficient supporting management
plan that support the organization to implement relevant changes in organization procedure to
avoid major or minor operational failure. This is a common processes which is used by
organizations in order to develop better system that can provide better management to improve
execution of different operation along with effective guidance.
Market Survey
For an organization this is important to stay aware of the current market conditions to
manage their operations accordingly. To get better result with change management this is
important for M & S to collect real time data in order to make relevant changes in the change
implementation process to maintain direction of work effective and productive. There are
different benefits of performing internal and external survey (Gallie, 2017). This surveys can
help the organization to stay up to date to the market data related to change. With help of
collected information organization can make some effective changes in their current system to
avoid negative impact of various changes of the market place.
CONCLUSION
This report is concluding the importance of key changes that are identified by Marks and
Spencer as clothing and fashion organization in UK market. Various changes that are important
and crucial for company in market place has been evaluated in the report. Each type of change is
specifically evaluated for retail stores and business procedures of Marks and Spencer. The
benefits and challenges of these changes are also evaluated for the retail stores of company.
There are different processes strategies and processes are used by the organization to give proper
response to specific change related to the retail market. The process that is used by the
organization in change implementation also has been explained and discussed in the report. It has
been found that the impact of new trends is huge on fashion clothing sector and it can force
whole industry to make specific change in order to survive in market place. It has been learned
that how various strategies can be used by organization to make changes management process
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more effective. Change management also has been studied in report that can be used by Marks
and Spencer to minimise impact of change implementation process.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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adjustment to large changes in trade. Annual Review of Economics. 8. pp.205-240.
Bánkuti, F.I. and Caldas, M.M., 2018. Geographical milk redistribution in Paraná State, Brazil:
consequences of institutional and market changes. Journal of rural studies. 64. pp.63-72.
Bataa, E., Izzeldin, M. and Osborn, D.R., 2016. Changes in the global oil market. Energy
Economics. 56. pp.161-176.
Becher, D.A., Walkling, R.A. and Wilson, J.I., 2017. Board changes and the director labor
market: The case of mergers.
Bowers, A. and Prato, M., 2018. The structural origins of unearned status: How arbitrary changes
in categories affect status position and market impact. Administrative Science Quarterly.
63(3). pp.668-699.
Gallie, D., 2017. The quality of work in a changing labour market. Social Policy &
Administration. 51(2). pp.226-243.
Glasserman, P. and Nouri, B., 2016. Market‐triggered changes in capital structure: Equilibrium
price dynamics. Econometrica. 84(6). pp.2113-2153.
Matas, A., Raymond, J.L. and Dominguez, A., 2017. Changes in fuel economy: An analysis of
the Spanish car market. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment.
55. pp.175-201.
Piercy, N.F., 2016. Market-led strategic change: Transforming the process of going to market.
Routledge.
Tidd, J. and Bessant, J.R., 2018. Managing innovation: integrating technological, market and
organizational change. John Wiley & Sons.
Online
5 Effective Change Management Strategies. 2017. [Online]. Available Through.
<https://www.businessmapping.com/blog/5-effective-change-management-strategies/>
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