Analysis of Leadership and Management Roles at M&S Retail Operations

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of leadership and management practices within Marks & Spencer (M&S), a prominent retail organization. The report begins by differentiating between the roles of managers and leaders, highlighting their respective characteristics, functions, and responsibilities within the context of M&S's operations. It then examines how these roles are adapted in different situational contexts, such as strategic planning, decision-making, and contingency situations like Brexit. The report further explores various leadership approaches and theories, including situational, systems, and contingency leadership, illustrating their application within M&S. The second part of the report focuses on operational management, discussing key approaches and their significance in achieving organizational objectives. It also analyzes factors that influence operational management and decision-making processes. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and insights into effective leadership and management strategies within a retail environment.

MANAGEMENT AND
OPERATIONS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK1.............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Comparison between different roles and features of manager and leader.............................1
P2 Function of manager and Responsibilities of leader in different situational context............3
P3 Approaches and theories of leadership..................................................................................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
P4 Key approaches of operation management and role of leader and manager.........................5
P5 Significance and value of operations management in attaining organisational objectives....6
P6 Factors which impact on operational management and decision making..............................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
According to Henri Fayol, management is all about controlling, planning, organizing,
commanding, forecasting and coordinate activities of others. Operations means the tasks which
are performed by company for generation of revenue. These activities are carried out on daily
basis and managers are responsible for supervising and controlling them (Barratt, Choi and Li,
2011). M&S is an organisation which is known for their clothing business. This company mainly
operates in retail sector and offering can be categorised on basis of clothing, food items,
furniture, beauty products etc. This project will include differences between characteristics of
leader and manager. Their roles in different situation will also get discussed in this assignment.
There are many theories of leadership and they will be explained in this file along with some key
approaches. Operational management is essential part of every company and its rapprochements
will be included in this project (Berger and Solferino, 2012). Besides this, their importance in
achieving organisational goal will come under this file. This assignment will talk about the
factors which influence decisions that are taken by leaders and managers.
TASK1
P1 Comparison between different roles and features of manager and leader
M&S is a public limited organisation which is running their business in retail sector. This
business was founded in 1884 and now possess a worldwide presence. When M&S started their
business, they were only focused on selling high quality of cloths but gradually they entered in
other segment like food, home décor etc. At present, it has been identified that Food section is
experiencing major expansion when compared with clothing line-up of the company.
Management structure of M&S
Marks and Spencer has a flat management structure. When an organisation has global
presence then they have to give power to all the managers who are present in different countries
and at different levels. Executive director is the key person in this company and directors of
various other divisions report directly to this person. This organisation has different segment and
every section has its own manager (Bhasin, 2011). Director of food, Head of Retail, Head of
Human resource, Head of Communication & Investor and Head of corporate Governance are few
departments who directly report to Executive direction. Scalar chain in M&S is not lengthy and
employees who are working at ground level can easily reach to managers of their division.
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Manager – Manager is a person who is responsible for administration and monitoring. He/she
take orders from top level management and convey it to people who are working in his/her team
to achieve rightful completion of the tasks.
Leader – Leader is a person who lead a team and he/she also have followers. This person has
power to motivate others and, have a vision for whole organisation. Leader do not get involve in
daily business but he/she is responsible for taking big decisions for the company.
Comparison between characteristics, function and role of manager and leader
Basis Manager Leader
Vision Manager do not have a vision.
They just follow the command
which is provided by leader to
them. It is the duty of manager
to assist company in moving
forward towards their vision.
Leader always have a vision.
Founder of M&S wanted to
provide good quality of
product to every person and as
a leader, this was their key
characteristic.
Planning Planning is done by managers
but they do not make long
term plan. They make
strategies for achieving so
company can executive long
term plans in an effective way.
Leaders make plans for long
term. Their thoughts are not
limited to profits, their make
plan so company can attain
their mission.
Function Managers make rules and
establish process of doing a
task.
Leaders build team and
communicate goals to
managers in order to seek
commitment from all
employees.
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Characteristics Managers have to possess few
qualities of leader like team
building, so they can do their
job in appreciable way (David,
2011).
Leaders do not need the skills
of manager because their work
and mindset is completely
different.
P2 Function of manager and Responsibilities of leader in different situational context
M&S is an organisation which has global presence. Change in business environment
environment bring challenges to every company and if manager and leader will not understand
their role in these situation then company may fail to achieve their set goals. Leaders
accountability and manager's function is mentioned below:
Formulation of strategies – M&S understand that they cannot get stable at a single point
and they have to expand their business in countries like China and India, as Asian region possess
a potential in driving growth of this undertaken business. When M&S decided to enter in Indian
market, they have to make strategies so they can compete with their global rivals like ZARA,
H&M etc. Managers play an important role in understand the Indian market and they gathered all
the significant information which is required for formulation of strategy. This company was
entering in a market which is going to moderate changes. Manager's function was not limited to
getting ground knowledge, they also got the responsibility of executing the strategies which was
made by management (Johnstone, 2016). Leaders of M&S knew that they have to be flexible and
make those strategies which can be modified with time. They were accountable for showing
direction to the employees and motivate them to work without an unnecessary burden.
Decision making – Last year M&S took a big decision i.e. to get out of the Chinese
market. China has the world biggest retail market and M&S could earn huge amount of money
from this country. The change in this market was predictable because every retail company knew
that buying power middle class group is increasing and urbanisation will assist retail companies
in attain desired growth. Managers of different stores of M&S monitored the growth of company
and found that company do not have much scope of growth because of the issue of less ''brand
awareness''. They helped Leader in making a big call i.e. to exit from China. Leaders role in
these type of situation is very important. They have to motivate their employees that sometime
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things do not go according to the plan of company but this does not means that they stop moving
forward in right direction and take right step (Liker and Morgan, 2011).
Contingency situation – Brexit developed an environment of uncertainty in UK. M&S
have sound presence in domestic market by rapidly changing business environment is increasing
number of problems and opportunity to Marks and Spencer. Leaders normally do not get involve
in daily operations but in this situation, they have to work like a manager and get involve in
everyday operations so that sustainability in the business operations could be achieved.
Managers, on the other hand, analyse market so they can communicate the changes which is
happening in the market and assist leader in making fast decisions.
P3 Approaches and theories of leadership
Every leader has his/her own style of leadership. It has its own strengths and weakness
but this does not mean that leader switch his/her leadership style by copying a successful leader.
Following are leadership approaches and theories:
Situation leadership – This type of leadership demand alterations in the leading style
which a leader have to adopt according to the situation. M&S support democratic leadership but
sometime situation force their leaders to follow autocratic style so leader can get more power and
bring some strictness in the organisational work. Situational leadership has a unique advantages
i.e. it is a realistic approach which can adopted by any leader (Luna and Bott, 2012). The
drawback which is attached to it is the confusion which come in the mind of followers when
leader make changes in his/her working style. M&S have certain organisational policies which is
same in all the countries where they are present. For example, they never support heavy
discounts on their products because their cloths and other offering get launched in premium
segment. But at the time of entering in India, they adopted different approach and situational
leadership style. Initially domestic leaders were following this policy set by top level
management but after sometime, by analysing situation, they started giving heavy discounts on
their offering. Leaders acted according to the market condition and it impacted company in a
positive way.
Systems leadership – M&S is a successful firm because they have a system for every task
which they have to perform. Compared to other, this is a bit different kind of leadership where
leadership is not related to one person. All the key people who are responsible for generating a
productive environment comes under the tag of ''leader''. System leaders have authority to make
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decisions and it is given by management of the organisation. Strength of this approach is that it
allow individuals to attain own targets along with the organisational objectives. M&S is using
system leadership in their big or prime stores. They allot different kind of responsibilities to an
employee and check that which work he/she can do better. After analysing strengths of every
employee, they develop a process where specialised workers work together on a system and
move forward towards organisational purpose.
Contingency leadership – Contingency theory argues that there is no perfect leadership
style and a leader have to change his/her attitude and thinking according to the scenario. Rigidity
would not allow leader to tackle a problem and this is why contingency approach focuses on
flexibility. Merit of contingency leadership is that it is a practical approach and it support
flexibility. But the major issue with it, is the complexity and confusing which happen when
leadership changes his/her mindset. M&S try to avoid this type of leadership because of its fit-
ability in the organisation (Mendis, Muttaqi and Perera, 2014). Last year, head of M&S at India
decided to leave his post and top level management at London decided to appoint James Munson
as the new managing director. They analysed whole situation and found that they need a person
who must have good experience of retail and marketing because competition in India is tuff.
Contingency leadership follow the concept of fit-ability and choosing a person from marketing
field over finance can be considered as its perfect example in business context.
M&S basically follow situational leadership but their leaders should make sure that they
do not make major changes in the process and their working style because it may distract
employees from proceeding towards company's mission and vision. Leaders should explain
every decision which they are taking to the employees so the issue of confusion and moving in
wrong direction get resolved.
TASK 2
P4 Key approaches of operation management and role of leader and manager
Operations management is one of the most important part of an organisation's business
and it assist managers & leaders in developing a sound process of manufacturing goods
(Operations and Project Management (OPM), 2017). These approaches do not only concentrate
on reducing cost of operations, they also help in delivering high level of customer satisfaction.
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M&S is serious about quality of their products and below are few operational approaches, along
with responsibilities of leader and manager, which is used by this company:
Hybrid approach – M&S understand the old approaches of operational management are
losing their importance with time so they adopted a new approach which is popular by the name
of lean six sigma. In operational management, these are two different approaches but M&S
develop a hybrid version where they focus on reducing expenditure of all the operational process
like manufacturing, delivery, etc. With that, they also tried to increase quality of their production
by use six sigma tool. This tool assist an organisation in developing a system where, if a
company produces 100000 goods then only one of them is found defective.
Quality main concern for M&S so they have adopted an approach which minimises
wastage of resources and increase quality of company's goods. Employees have to go through
training when they company work on hybrid approach. Leaders are responsible for convincing
employees and managers to increase their working hours so they can do their routine work and
joining training session. They inspire them by communicating the advantages of learning new
things and hard work. Managers role in this situation i.e. work on hybrid approach is basically of
monitoring and controlling. They check that whether the process is followed or not, according to
the demand of top level management.
Total quality management (TQM) – It is an old but very effective approach where
organisation develop an atmosphere which promote continuous improvement. This work is not
done by only having a meeting of top managers and leaders, various stakeholder like customer,
workers, suppliers are involved in it (Niknam, Meymand and Mojarrad, 2011). This approach
have 5 principles, quality production, concentrate of buyers, develop strategic approach of
improvement, regular improvement and mutual respect. Managers resolve various issues which
is faced by employees and customers on daily basis for ensuring that operational processes run
without any hindrance. Leaders motivate workers and managers to overcome own weaknesses
and use their creative minds so company can focus on continuous improvement. Leader also take
big calls like whether new machinery should be installed in company of not.
P5 Significance and value of operations management in attaining organisational objectives
M&S want to sell their quality products in all the part of this world. They want to reach
every single customer who is interested in buying better quality of cloths and other products.
Rivals of this company has tainted their image by projecting them a company who charge huge
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amount from the customer in the name of quality products. Now, one of the key objective of
M&S is to ensure ''value for money''. M&S want to become a trust brand and regular innovation
is their another target. Importance and value of operational management approach is as follows:
Hybrid approach – Marks and Spencer adopted this operational management approach
because they wanted to reduce prices of their commodities but without sacrificing quality of
goods. Their is no doubt that the products like cloths of M&S is expensive. Hybrid approach
reduces various kind of unnecessary expenditure which was increasing burden of cost on the
organisation's product. Six sigma helped company is developing an effective process which is
assisting company in achieving their targets (Palizban, Kauhaniemi and Guerrero, 2014). M&S
seek high customer satisfaction and they know that providing value for money is only possible
when they sell quality products at competitive price. Hybrid approach helped M&S is attaining
all the objectives at same time.
TQM - TQM is an approach which pushes an organisation towards continuous
improvement. Customer satisfaction is important for growth of an organisation and prime
objective of M&S satisfy all the needs of their customers. TQM do not only involve leaders,
employees also give their inputs at the time of making a call regarding systematic approach for
proceeding towards organisational goals. Total quality management include fact based decision
making. This help managers of M&S in making more realistic strategies and it reduces risk
elements which is involved in any plan. Innovation is essential for business organisations in this
era. TQM promote innovative ideas and it allow company to get ''out of the box'' solution of
issues like reduce cost but increase quality, at same time (Zhang and Chen, 2014).
Leader's and manager's responsibility in improving operational efficiency
M&S is a successful organisation because their leaders and managers understand their
responsibilities and they know if they are not serious about effective execution of approaches
then company can never achieve their set targets. Leaders play an important role in motivating
employees to serve their thoughts in-front of management. They also evaluate all the option
relation to operational process and make decision about which procedure or technique of
production should be considered by the organisation. Adopting hybrid approach was a decision
which was taken by leader of M&S and it is now assisting company in attaining organisational
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objectives. Managers are among most important people of the firm and they monitor as well as
control whole operational process. Employees make mistake at the time of following approaches
like TQM. Managers make sure that employees does not repeat same mistake and workers
innovation get convert into reality.
P6 Factors which impact on operational management and decision making
External factors have capacity to influence the decision-making process by leader and
manager (Vogel, Güttel and 2013). One can make plans for those things which are in hand of
company but managers & leaders cannot control external elements.
Impact of external elements on wider business environment and decision making:
Economic condition – M&S is operating in many countries and economic condition of
every nation is different. In UK, economic growth of country is in poor condition and it is
creating hurdles for leaders and managers in making decisions daily operations. M&S want to
open more stores in UK but because of low economic growth of country, they are have to make
change in their decision. They understand that demand of goods will be low if economic growth
is down.
Technology – M&S want to reduce their cost of business so they can sell their products at
competitive price but they have to adopt new technology with time in order to run their business
in effective manner and save their business model from getting obsolete. Leaders of this
company try to make strategy for minimising expenditure but rapid change in technology
negatively impact the decisions which they are making after thorough research (Shuxin, 2011).
Globalisation – Every country is opening their economy for foreign investment and
import-export restriction are also changing with time. Their was a time when M&S wanted to
expand their business operations in limited region gradually but when managers and leaders
found various advantages of globalising their operations then make a big change in their decision
and adopted an aggressive expansion plan. This external factor positively affected growth of
company's operations.
Apply operation management for managing impact of external factors:
The reason behind adopting a hybrid approach in M&S is demand of the situation.
Technology is assisting M&S in improving their business but it is putting an addition burden of
operational cost by forcing company to adopt new technology. Hybrid approach is minimising
the negative impact which technological changes in doing on company's operation (Travis and
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Rekhtman, 2011). This approach is reducing cost of business and improving quality of
organisation's products. TQM is an important approach which is assisting M&S in increasing
their number of stores and assuring that more customers are getting attach to company.
Recommendations for improvement
M&S should develop more hybrid approaches and they should also focus on proper
execution of these approaches. If they will concentrate on these two things then will not remain
vulnerable in-front of external elements. Planning does not assure success, proper execution of
approaches of operational management is also important.
CONCLUSION
At the end, it can be concluded that leader's and managers may have different
characteristics and role but if either of them will not do their job according to the need of time
then company cannot attain desired outcome. A leader has to make amendment in his/her
leadership style according to the situation. Every organisation has their own approach of
operational management but these approaches are inspired by or hybrid version of famous and
effective approaches like Lean manufacturing, TQM etc. Operational management approaches
help a multi-national organisation in reaching their aim. Manager and leaders has to follow their
responsibilities order to executive various approaches in proper way. External factors like
increased competition, globalisation etc. affect the plan which is made by leaders. Sometime,
managers are forced to change their decision relating to operations management because of the
influence of external factors.
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Online
Operations and Project Management (OPM). 2017. [Online] Available through:
<https://www.beds.ac.uk/research-ref/bmri/centres/bisc/okm>.
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