Richmond University: MKT6801 Strategic Marketing Planning of H&M

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of H&M's strategic marketing planning, focusing on its corporate and business objectives. The report begins by defining and differentiating between corporate and business strategies, followed by a brief overview of H&M's history. The core of the report critically assesses H&M's corporate and business objectives, framed within the SMART framework, evaluating their specificity, measurability, achievability, relevance, and timeliness. The analysis incorporates relevant marketing theory to illustrate how H&M approaches its strategic goals, including allocation of resources, organization design, portfolio management, and strategic trade-offs. The report also examines the evolution of H&M's objectives in the context of its historical development and the competitive landscape of the fashion retail industry, including fair trade practices, digital expansion and sustainability. Finally, the report offers a conclusion summarizing the key findings and the importance of strategic planning in driving business success.

STRATEGIC MARKETING
PLANNING

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
1. Corporate strategies ................................................................................................................3
2. Business strategies...................................................................................................................4
3. History of H&M.......................................................................................................................4
4. H&M Corporate and Business objective.................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
The Strategies are being used and outline of action a decision of company to attain the
company's objective in effective manner. In this report, corporate strategies of H&M, business
strategies, a brief history of H&M and SMART objectives which is critically analysed for
company.
MAIN BODY.
1. Corporate strategies .
This strategy approaches shows the working of strategies decision by company to create
high value for goods that are offering to consumers. The various strategies to fit into market and
in different manner by company to achieve the aim and objective (Amatulli, and et.al., 2021).
These strategies are used to gain competitive advantage in market over other company and
maintain it for long term. These strategies also motivate workforce to execute proper action plan
of company to gain customer satisfaction. However, it is a continuous process that required high
efforts to engage with investor, customers and other stakeholder to gain the company trust and
goodwill in market.
These strategies are having 4 main components used by companies.
 Allocation of resources of firm focus on major two factors I.e. humans and capital
resources. Leaders put their efforts to create value from this two resources. Human
resources are maintained and distributed across the company effective that make right
people at right job. Capital allocation of firms are being analysing external opportunities
with other firms and allocating internally to projects of company.
 Organization design which include the strategies of structure that need to be followed by
company in different areas. Centralization ad decentralization are one of the major
strategies that decide the authority, roles and responsibilities of each employee in
company. It also includes the vertical hierarchy and matrix reporting methods in
company that need to be followed and working to be done in specific manner (Bocken,
and Ritala, 2021).
 Portfolio management makes the business to enter the market or not by determining the
extent of vertical integration of company. These strategies also manage risk associated
with it, creating strategies option to seek new opportunities of company to get high
returns.

 Strategic trade-off of company is one of the most important challenges to maintain
balance between risk and return of firms. It helps to manage risk, generate returns and
incentives of employees.
2. Business strategies.
This strategy is a course of actions and decision of company plans that assist business
strategies to achieve aim and objective. It is the master plan of company which work on to gain
competitive advantages through effective operation and achieve the desire end of company by
meeting customer demand. Business strategy help to achieve sales target of company within a
limited set target by company (Brooks, and et.al., 2021). Achieving effectiveness in working of
employees through various strategies like training and development programs. Perceiving and
utilization of opportunities that are available in market of fashion industry. Mobilizing resource
of company in manner to get the best output from it and generate revenue from it. It also
increases the chances to taking advantages of brand name position in market by meeting
challenges and threats that are arises with changing environment. These strategies are specific
target and reason that allow company to move towards company aim and objectives. Also, thee
strategies are changed according to situation and time changes in market to operate in and
recreate by analysing the future risk and opportunities that are available in market (Mogaji, and
et.al., 2021).
Business strategies are of 3 major type which are developed to attain specific task. These
strategies are:
 Corporate level of strategies that made in order to attain company's objective which are
made by top authorities and which are being crated according to internationals standards
and to increase the market share in international market.
 Business level of strategies which are developed by general manager that convert mission
and vision of company by effective strategies for overall working of company.
 Functional level of strategies are being prepared by line manager who involve decision-
making at operational level of company. This includes the using of resources in a manner
that increase company functioning of department which move toward company aims and
objectives (Staicu, 2021).

3. History of H&M.
H&m is a Swedish multinational company dealing in clothing-retailer which was majorly
known for its fast fashion clothing offers to men, women and teenager. It was established in 1947
by Erling Perrson open first shop in Sweden called Hennes exclusive for women clothing. In
1964, store was open in Norway and Persson acquired hunting apparel retailer called Mauritiz
Widforss, company dealing in Men clothing product range and change the name to Hennes &
Mauritiz. After, few years company was listed on London Stock Exchange in 1974. Listing first
store outside home town was open in London (Beyer, and Arnold, 2021). At that point, H&M
continuous expand their store in European market and begin online retailing in 1998. H&M open
there first store in U. S on 31 March 2000 and marked record outside European market. Further,
they start dealing in home furniture and allocate their H&M Home stores internationally around
the different countries. Also H&M start expanding into new market like Asia and Middle East.
H&M operate more than 2325 store in 2011 and 2629 in 2012 across the world. They
start offer the exclusive collection of top designers like Karl Lagerfeld which was one of the
major success of H&M and shows huge success all over the world by selling out all collection
within one hour. Other fashion designers which further used by company is Stella McCartney
and Viktor & Rolf. It reaches to milestone when they collaborate designed by Madonna. It is
being that H&M is working with the latest trends and can be seen in 2007 where company
worked with game developer Maxis to create fashion on The Sims 2computor game (Hägerö,
2021).
. They also release limited edition collection by Jimmy Choo featuring shoes and handbags
which start their range from £30 to £170 which also include the range of Men Shoes. However,
as of now H&M operate in more than 74 countries with over 5000 stores and available online in
more than 33 countries.
4. H&M Corporate and Business objective.
The SMART objective of H&M are:
Specific: To work with fair and equal fashion industry by long term positive change for
people and environment throughout the value chain.
Measurable: Connecting with suppliers with good condition for better relation for
supply chain.

Achievable: H&M main objective is 100% sustainable resources of using recycle
products for their all collection by 2030.
Relevant: More focus on digital store and creating new experience for users.
Timely: To make climate positive chain of company by 2020 across the world to lead the
fashion market.
The corporate strategies of H&M are is to provide with recycled fashionable products at
international market and fair trade practices which helps the organization to earn or maximize
their profit margin and pay workers efficiently in the undeveloped world (Rizzotto, 2021)
. There are many advantages according to this specific objective is that it encourages excellent
wage system within their organization which ultimately benefits the company as well as their
employees. However, certain limitations include that big purchasers are not attracted towards the
fair trade model and the cost of inventory purchases. Connection with the suppliers with good
and proper condition for better relations for supply chain benefits the organization in lowering
the cost when it comes to seeking out and at the time of negotiating fresh deals with new
suppliers. It does help in improve the efficiency of the company. On the other hand, it does
impact the organization as it creates barriers to exit as long term relationships with suppliers
force them to continue their work whether they are satisfied or not (Zhu, 2021).
Using recycle products helps the organization while reducing the wastage, conserve
natural resources and saves energy consumption which ultimately helps the organization to fulfil
the corporate social responsibilities within the organization. On a contrary note, it has been
evaluated that it has been resulted in high upfront cost and products comes from recycle waste
may not that much durable and thus results in increasing pollutants. With the help of going
digital the company enhances its data collection and manage their resources efficiently which
ultimately increases profits of the company while there are certain disadvantages which affects
the company as it does impact the data security and thus generates privacy concerns within the
organization. With the enhancement of business it enables the company to enhance their stock
and resources while generating more sales and profit for the company (Loctander, Karlsson, and
Zanetti, 2021). It reduces external risks of competition from other retailers. However, sometimes
enhancement of production output may lead to decline in quality sometimes.

CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that strategies are highly important in order
to run business activities efficiently. For this the company have to create corporate and business
strategies individually which helps the overall functioning of the company. In context of H&M
both kind of strategies contributes their maximum towards the betterment of the company.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Amatulli, C., De Angelis, M., Sestino, A. and Guido, G., 2021. Omnichannel Shopping
Experiences for Fast Fashion and Luxury Brands: An Exploratory Study. In Developing
Successful Global Strategies for Marketing Luxury Brands (pp. 22-43). IGI Global.
Beyer, K. and Arnold, M.G., 2021. Circular Approaches and Business Model Innovations for
Social Sustainability in the Textile Industry. In Sustainable Textile and Fashion Value
Chains (pp. 341-373). Springer, Cham.
Bocken, N. and Ritala, P., 2021. Six ways to build circular business models. Journal of Business
Strategy.
Brooks, J.W., Ravishankar, M.N. and Oshri, I., 2021. Status differentials and framing in the
implementation of IT‐enabled task migration strategies. Information Systems Journal.
Hägerö, M., 2021. H&M: s ansvar inom textilindustrin ur ett socialt perspektiv-En riktad
kvalitativ innehållsanalys av H&M: s hållbarhetsrapporter publicerade år 2009
respektive år 2019 utifrån CSR-teorin.
Loctander, O., Karlsson, N. and Zanetti, S., 2021. Hållbarhetsrapportering och legitimitet: En
fallstudie om hur H&M Gruppen använder hållbarhetsrapporter för att arbeta med
legitimitetsfrågor och rykte efter en skandal.
Mogaji, E., Hinson, R.E., Nwoba, A.C. and Nguyen, N.P., 2021. Corporate social responsibility
for women's empowerment: a study on Nigerian banks. International Journal of Bank
Marketing.
Rizzotto, J.A., 2021. The role of CRS on the fast fashion business: consumer perception and
outcames (Doctoral dissertation).
Staicu, D., 2021. Identifying Circular Business Models Through Traditional and Snowball
Sampling. In Business Revolution in a Digital Era (pp. 115-131). Springer, Cham.
Zhu, B., 2021. MILLENNIAL CONSUMERS’PURCHASE INTENTION FOR ECO-FASHION
APPAREL: A STUDY FROM SOUTHERN CHINA. ABAC Journal, 41(1), pp.1-25.
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