Report on Management Structure, Business Functions at Marks & Spencer

This report provides an overview of the management structure and business functions within Marks & Spencer, a British multinational company. It examines various management theories, including Scientific Management Theory, Administrative Management Theory, and Bureaucratic Management Theory, and their application within different organizational structures like functional, divisional, flatarchy, and matrix structures. The report also details key marketing functions such as promotion, selling, pricing, and product management, explaining how Marks & Spencer implements these strategies. Furthermore, it explores the five main management functions—planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling—and their interrelation. The significance of HR and talent management in maximizing employee productivity and fostering a positive organizational culture is also discussed, highlighting the impact of strong versus weak organizational cultures on employee engagement and innovation. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of effectively managing business and marketing functions for sustained company growth.

Introduction to
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Management structure and Business functions......................................................................1
Marketing Functions...............................................................................................................3
Management Functions..........................................................................................................4
Interrelation of Management Functions.................................................................................4
HR and Talent Management...................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Management is the art of coordinating and administrating the tasks of an organisation in
order to achieve business goals. It includes the activities which focus on making strategies and
combining the staff's efforts to attain the objectives through maximum utilisation of human
resources. Marks and Spencer, which is a British multinational company headquartered in
London, United Kingdom, is being chosen to conduct this report. In this report we will discuss
management structure along with business functions. In addition to this, marketing functions and
management functions will also be explained. It will also include relevance of HR and talent
management.
MAIN BODY
Management structure and Business functions
It describes how a organisation organizes the hierarchy of its management. It basically
involves the power, roles and responsibilities that are coordinated, assigned and controlled and
how the data or information flows among different levels of management. Management is the
process of designing and maintaining an environment in which individuals working together in
groups efficiently accomplish objectives or goals. Through application of best practices from
management theories can help an organisation to effectively achieve its objectives. These
theories are the collection of ideas which basically recommend general rules in order to manage a
organisation. It provides various benefits such as increased productivity, simplified decision
making, increased collaboration and increased objectivity (Balconi, 2017).
Scientific Management Theory
It was developed by Frederick Taylor and involves focusing on achieving maximum
productivity through finding a optimal way to complete a task.
Administrative Management Theory
It was developed by Henry Fayol and believed that leader had six main functions which
involves command, plan, forecast, coordinate, control and developing principles that leader
should interact and organize with their teams.
1

Bureaucratic management theory :
This theory focuses on structuring organizations in a hierarchy with clear rules of
governance.
Types of Organizational Structure
Functional Structure
It involves dividing the organisation according to departments that involves marketing,
sales and operations using functional organizational structure (Trofimova, 2021).
Divisional Structure
It is followed in large companies with various business units. In context to M&S , the
company uses this structure where its leadership team based on the projects, products or
subsidiaries they operate.
Flatarchy Structure
It is used in the organisation who have high speed of implementation.
Matrix Structure
The structure employees across different departments, divisions and superiors.
The right organizational structure helps a company with various benefits. The structure
not only defines the hierarchy of the company but it also helps in pay structure of its employees.
The structure makes the organizational operations much more effective and efficient. The right
type of organizational structure helps in informing the employees to perform their best in the
organisation. There are various disadvantages of the organisational structure which involves
competition among divisions, lack of communication between divisions, poor integration with
divisions and potential tax implications (Winder, 2018).
Business functions involves the activities that are carried out by the enterprise and is
divided into support functions and core functions. There are various different business functions
such as planning and controlling function which is responsible for all the planning and finding
deviations in the organisations, finance function which is responsible to maintain the budget in
order to carry out business operations and personnel which is responsible for training and
recruitment.
2

Marketing Functions
Marketing functions defines the elements necessary in the process of marketing in order
to create a link between producers and customers. Marks and Spencer performs these functions
to ensure that their operations are generating revenues and improves its performance.
Promotion: It includes the strategies and techniques used by an organisation to increase the
number of sales. In regards with marks and spencer, the organisation follows various promotion
techniques in the form of advertisements, commercials etc. through TV, newspapers, posters and
online websites. The promotional activities they conduct directly impact their sales and and
expand the scope of marketing which is a important business function (Gregory, 2019).
Selling: It is the act of delivering products and services produced by an organisation to the
customers. Selling is a crucial component of marketing function as it decides the profitability
margins for a company. This function of marketing is closely related to the human resources
working in an organisation. In context to Marks and Spencer, the company's efficient human
resource management ensures recruitment of efficient salesman by identifying their skills as a
salesperson. Proper training is provided to all employees in order to conduct their business
operations in proper and smooth manner.
Pricing: It is the core function of marketing which decides the value of a product that is offered
to the consumers in order to generate revenues. Pricing is related to the purchasing function of a
business because the cost incurred in obtaining raw materials is the basis for deciding prices. In
context of marks and spencer, the organisation fix certainly higher prices because they purchase
high quality materials in order to yield best results for the company. They incur high cost in the
production process and charge accordingly from the customers
Product management: This function ensures that the product are designed according to the taste
and preferences of the customers. In context with Marks and Spencer, the company continuously
invests in research and development department to know their product better and bring
innovation in their products. Also , the company conducts competitor analysis, interact with
prospects and incorporate feedback from support teams.
3

Management Functions
The main five functions of management as defined by Henry Fayol involves Planning,
organizing, command, coordination and control.
Planning : It involves deciding in advance what to do , how to do and by whom it has to be
done. This step requires active participation of entire organization.
Organizing : It involves that there should be sufficient staff, raw materials and capital in order to
run a organization smoothly.
Commanding : It involves giving clear working instructions and orders in order to guide
employees.
Coordinating : It involves good leadership and clear communication that will help in achieving
objectives.
Controlling : It involves ensuring that everything is going according to the plan through steps
which involves establishing objectives, measuring actual performance, comparing actual
performance with standards and taking corrective measures.
Interrelation of Management Functions
All the management functions are highly interrelated with each other and supports each
other in order to achieve organisational objectives. Controlling is related to goals because it is
basically a culmination of previous goals. Interrelation basically means that the result of each
activity influences the tasks and other activities. The main responsibility is to see that essential
activities are done in best possible ways through doing the right things. The relationship among
directing and planning is that all the plans are directed by the managers of M&S at all levels of
organization. In order to organise a plan it is important to have raw materials and capita, in order
to organise a business it is important to direct in order to ensure resources are provided to
achieve objectives.
Staffing involves effective selection, development of personnel in order to fill roles in the
organisation. The function of staffing and directing moves together as directing helps to improve
job satisfaction and improving quality of work. Controlling ensures that objectives are met
4

according to the plans and for the function of directing towards accomplishment of task,
controlling plays an important role. Coordinating is achieved through directing 'hereorders,
instructions and guidance is given to subordinates through bringing harmony among superiors
and subordinates.
HR and Talent Management
An HR department is involved in maximizing employee productivity and protecting the
company from issues that arise within the workforce. The HR responsibilities involves
recruitment, benefits, compensation and keeping up to date with laws that may affect the
employees and its company. The Hr of an organisation has to perform various activities that
involves five core functions such as compensation, staffing, development, safety and health and
labour and employee relations.
It involves selection, attraction and retention of employees that involves a combination of
HR process through employee life cycle. It involves various factors such as performance
management, on boarding, learning and development, employee engagement, workforce
planning and retention. Talent management helps in keeping the employees feel motivated,
skilled and engaged that allows them to work in the direction of the company’s goals that results
in increasing business performance and client satisfaction( Maciag, 2017).
Organizational culture involves collection of expectations, values and practices that inform
and guide the actions of all the team members. The culture of organisation influences the success
of the company through talent retention to hire recruitment to employee engagement. The culture
of organisation directly affects the type of candidates. The different type of organizational
culture are market culture, hierarchy culture, adhocracy culture and clan culture. A strong
organisational culture can help in motivating the sense of a share purpose and helps in creating
group harmony that makes it easier for employees to get along by conforming common norms
Whereas a weak organisational culture serves as loose reference for the employees of an
organization without influencing their behaviour (Jafari, 2017).
A weak organisational structure involves where employees are not clear regarding their
roles and responsibilities in the organisation. The weak organizational structure allows an
increase in the turnover of employees and spirals into employee disengagement and low
employee morale. A strong organizational culture is difficult to change as it can stifle innovation
5

as employees of the organization are already doing their jobs as per the same way and weak
culture can be a advantage for organization that benefit from innovation and independent thought
by their members.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been concluded that marketing functions needs to be
performed properly for continuous growth of the company. Business functions and marketing
functions are closely related with each other. All successful companies analyse these functions
and execute them in order to conduct their operations smoothly.
6

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Balconi, M., 2017. Introduction to the issue. Neuropsychological Trends, 21. pp.7-8.
Gregory, V. L., 2019. Collection development and management for 21st century library
collections: an introduction. American Library Association.
Jafari, H., 2017. Islamic Management in the Leading Islamic University; An Introduction to
Organizational Leadership of Ayatollah Mahdavi Kani. Strategic Management
Thought, 11(2). pp.5-48.
Maciag, R., 2017, July. Cyber physical systems by humanistic management. Introduction.
In 2017 IEEE 15th International Conference on Industrial Informatics (INDIN) (pp. 911-
916). IEEE.
Trofimova, N. N., 2021. Key Directions Of Optimization Of Business Processes Of The
Production Enterprise On The Basis Of Introduction Of Technology Of Strategic
Management  «Lean Six Sigmaâ». Business Strategies.
Winder, G. M., 2018. Introduction: fisheries, quota management, quota transfer and bio-
economic rationalization. In Fisheries, quota management and quota transfer (pp. 3-28).
Springer, Cham.
7

8