Marketing Report: Analyzing Marketing Strategies of Marks & Spencer

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the marketing strategies employed by Marks & Spencer, a British multinational retailer. It begins by outlining the roles and responsibilities of the marketing function, including identifying consumer needs, developing market strategies, product development, managing marketing budgets, and standardization and grading. The report then explores the interrelationships between the marketing department and other functional units within the organization, such as finance, research and development, human resources, and IT. Furthermore, it compares Marks & Spencer's marketing mix (product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence) with that of Burberry, highlighting the differences in their approaches. The report concludes with an evaluation of Marks & Spencer's marketing plan, offering a detailed overview of its strategies and effectiveness.

Marketing Essential

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION 1
TASK 1 1
P1Roles and responsibilities of marketing function....................................................................1
P2 interrelationships between marketing and other functional units of the organisation..........2
TASK 3 4
P3 Compare the ways with the different organisation applying the marketing mix...................4
P.4 Evaluate marketing plan for an organization........................................................................7
Conclusion 11
REFERENCES 12
The Four P's of Marketing. 2017. [ONLINE]available through
:<https://www.purelybranded.com/insights/the-four-ps-of-marketing/> 12

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is the process of promoting and selling the products and services through
different marketing techniques by doing marketing research. The role of the marketing function
in the organisation is to identify and provide potentially successful products to the marketplace.
Marketing function include performing market research, develop marketing plan and product
development. Marketing mix plays an important role in setting the strategy that helps to promote
the product in the marketplace.
Present study will be based on the Marks and Spencer which is British multinational
retailer company. It is founded by Michael Marks in 1884. Its headquarter was located in
London, United Kingdom. It is specializes in selling clothing, Home products and luxury food
products. It also began to sell the goods like Kellogg's Corn Flakes.
Report will include the roles and responsibilities of the marketing function and its
interlink with different departments.
TASK 1
P1Roles and responsibilities of marketing function
Marketing is the business process of advertising and selling of merchandise and services
that is being produced by the company in order to aware customers regarding their products.
Marketing function is a system that have certain roles and responsibilities towards a
corporation to perceive and supply potential products for the marketplace where they operate in
and advertise those products via distinguishing them from comparable merchandise. Thus, it is
an essential part of any organization. However, the role of marketing function is to exchange of
products and services from producers to customers in a manner that satisfies the needs and wants
of buyers. Moreover, the roles and responsibilities of marketing functions begin from identifying
the client wishes and concluded with satisfying the consumer wants (Baker, and Saren, 2016).
Identify consumer needs : To perceive the desire, needs and wants of the consumers and
evaluating the diagnosed information to reach at diverse choices for the successful marketing of
services and products is one of the crucial role of marketing information. However, the
responsibility of marketing function is to evaluate the imperfections and strengths of the
organization and at the same time evaluating the political, legal, social and demographic factors

of the specific market. Thus, these statistics will help the marketing department of company in
segmenting the market on the basis of product.
Market strategy: The role of market-planning is to accomplish a company's advertising
targets. Thus, the objectives of the company's marketing department is to develop marketplace
presence, influence the market and capture huge market (Pride, and Ferrell, 2016). However, the
responsibility of the market planning function is to include the other factors of manufacturing
tiers, promotions and other marketing programmes that will contribute towards the objectives of
the marketing department.
Product development :The role of product development is to make research regarding
the market trends of ongoing products and make the list regarding which products are most
preferred by the customers. Moreover, the responsibility of the product development is to
product design and quality meet the specification of the customers.
Maintaining marketing budget:The role of marketing budget is to measure how much
expense should be incurred obtain the new customer base and at the same time they should make
sure that all the resources are optimized properly. However, the responsibility of marketing
budget is to make sure that all the parameters are considered properly and budget of marketing
leads to the profitability for the company.
Standardization and Grading: Standardization role and responsibility is to produce
items according to planned procedures. However, the role of standardization is that it guarantees
that product services meet established quality and quantity. However, the responsibility of
standardization is to helps in attaining regularity and consistency in the end product.
On the flip side, Grading is categorization of goods in diverse businesses based totally
upon planned traits. Thus, the role of grading involves manipulating the standards size and
weight of the product and the responsibility of Grading is to decide the price according to the
modified size and weight of the product because the good quality items and offerings entice
higher costs.
P2 interrelationships between marketing and other functional units of the organisation
The functions of marketing department of Marks & Spencer never operate separately.
Thus, it is critical for the company to evaluate that their marketing functions works with the

other functions of an organization. Moreover, all the functions within the company focuses on
the patron which means they are patron oriented that packs the order to the customer support
crew member who respond to the queries and issues of customers (Sheth.2017).
Finance department and marketing department: Marketing department of the marks
and Spencer work closely with the finance department as it keeps the record of financial position
of the company and sets the budgets of company through company get to know how much
expense can be incurred by the company. Thus, with the help of finance department, marketing
department of the company promote products on the basis of budget of the company which is set
by the finance department.
Research & development and marketing: Research and development department help
in examining the recent trends of the market and the customer demands and wants of the
products. Thus, with the help of the R&D, marketing department of the Marks and Spencer get to
know about the ongoing market trends and according to those research the marketing department
advertises the products which ultimately satisfies the needs and wants of the customers.
HR and marketing department: The HR department of Marks and Spencer frequently
serves the personnel for the marketing department of the company. (Zhang,Watson ,Palmatier
and Dant.2016). However, sometimes it is impossible for the company to attract new employees
in their company thus with the help of HR department the company can recruit potential
employees which they require for carrying out their marketing activities and promote their
products.
IT and marketing department: In today's digitized era, technology plays a greater role
within the marketing department of the mark and Spencer, thus the significance of IT department
cannot be ignored by the marketing department of the company.
Moreover, the marketing department uses advanced IT systems including customer
relationship management (CRM) software, records Warehouses and content management
structures (CMS). However, those are often huge scale tasks and it is the duty of IT workforce to
aid these advertising and marketing activities (Baker, and Saren, M. 2016).
Moreover, mobile apps have become critical for the marketers because today customers
prefer to shop the products through the mobile apps of the company, thus, IT department of the

company required to put into effect the various software to assist the tasks of the marketing
department.
Moreover, IT department of the company plays a critical role in updating about the
converting technology in the market that helps the company to update their technology for
provide more advanced services to their customers.
TASK 3
P3 Compare the ways with the different organisation applying the marketing mix
P3 Compare the ways with the different organisation applying the marketing mix
Marketing Mix Marks & Spencer Burberry
Product Marks & Spencer offer wide
range of the products and has a
strong width of product mix. It
sells highly differentiated
products with various features
offered to the customers. The
product of Marks & Spencer is
of higher quality as compared
to other brands. Its products
are famous for its traditional
designIt offers products like
clothing, home products and
luxury food products.
(Saunders, Barrington and
Sridharan, 2015).
Burberry is a fashion house
company that mainly focuses
on the trench coats, ready to
wear outwear, fashion
accessories, sunglasses and
cosmetics. It has the product
mix strategy for the clothing
and fashion accessories. It
sells the quality product to the
customers that help to satisfy
their needs and wants .
Price The pricing strategy of the
Marks & Spencer is based
upon the competition in the
marketplace. It sells its product
in higher price as compared to
The pricing strategy of the
Burberry is based upon the
quality of product that the
company offers to its
customers. It sells product

its competitors. It currently
uses the product bundle pricing
also in that products are
bundled together and sold at
lower prices..Price penetration
strategy is also being used by
the company so that at the time
of recession period problem is
not occurred while selling the
product.
online where it charges the
higher price from the
customer. As in online
marketing the delivery cost is
also involved in the price of
the product so Burberry is
charging high price from the
customers. It also uses the
optional pricing strategy for
certain products (Bake, 2016).
Place It sells its product all over the
world. It follows omni -channel
distribution system where both
the system online and offline
are integrated together so that
customer can easily access the
products. It makes its global
presence and strong customer
base in the market. It is
available in all the areas (JAIN,
2017). It has a large network
of suppliers that supply the raw
material worldwide.
It sells its product through two
marketing channels. Firstly, it
sells through online marketing
and secondly it sells to
wholesalers then it goes to
retailer and then finally it
reached to the customers. It
provides discount and offers
so that more customers are
engaged with the company. It
setup different stores for the
accessories and the clothing
store. It managed the stock
time to time for that it has
stored the stock in advance.
Promotion It uses multiple channels to
promote the product. It uses
traditional ways to promote the
product such as through
television or radio. This helps
They advertise the product
through sales promotion
technique as by taking part in
the exhibitions and events to
promote the product. It uses

in reaching the large customers.
Different promotional
techniques plays a vital role in
making the marketing
strategies for the Marks &
Spencer.. It advertises on
various social media platforms
such as You tube, Twitter etc.
They use detailed and
emotional advertising to
connect to the customer. It
attracts the customers through
different promotion techniques
such as personal selling, direct
selling etc.
percentage sales method to
determine promotion budget.
Burberry uses the personal
selling technique of promotion
to aware people about the
presence of in the market.
(Mohammad, 2015).
People They recruit new employees
and provide them training is
the huge responsibility of
Marks & Spencer. By offering
training to the employees of the
company gives a competitive
advantage for the Marks &
Spencer to attract more people
towards it. Interaction with the
customers helps in evaluating
the performance of the
company. It has people in the
retail stores who can help the
customers (Ray, Das and
Kumar, 2017).
Burberry has also recruit the
people and trained them
accordingly to help customers
if any problem or issues
occurred with them. In online
also one people is always there
to help the customers
regarding any queries. The
people are trained for the
purpose of solving issues that
are come from the customers.

Process Marks & Spencer uses online
delivery process to deliver the
products to the customers. It
offer employment to the huge
quantity of employees that
helps in manufacturing the
product with use of new
technologies such as the
innovative machines
The use of innovative
technology help Burberry in
manufacturing the quality
product. From new process
and function of manufacturing
it gives opportunity to
Burberry for using high
quality machine for serving
the product to the customers.
Physical Evidence Marks & Spencer's physical
evidence is so much attractive
such as the tag line of the
Marks & Spencer easily attract
the customers for buying the
product. It sells its products in
distinct color packaging that
can be easily identifiable to the
customers. It allows customers
to view the products in high
quality images that are posted
online.
Burberry comes with a huge
change in the connectivity
with the customers. The better
evidence is created by
Burberry in the market by
setting small stores for the
customer so that queries of the
customers can be easily
managed by the company
(Ofosu, 2016).
P.4 Evaluate marketing plan for an organization.
Executive summary :-
A business plan has been describes in this which contains many elements and all these
elements helps in make marketing plan in proper way. This summary described about
introduction of organization that launch new product. It also discussed objective of plan. Swot
analysis also covered by this plan because through this analysis it helps in know about strength
and weakness, opportunity and threats and it helped in know about all situation of organization

for make effective plan. This summary also described marketing mix and it includes 4 P's like
product, price, place and promotion as well as also described segmentation, targeting and
positioning of product. Control and evaluation of plan and make budget for launch of product
was also covered in this summary.
Introduction :- Marks and Spencer is a British multinational retail organization. It was
founded in 1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer. Its headquarter located in London and
it sells product at global level like clothes, shoes etc.
Objective :- marks and Spencer launch bags of different types and it main objective that
it provide all product to their customers so it launches bags of different types like hand bags,
office bags and children's bags. It also has main aim that establish long term relationship with
customers. So through SMART framework it makes objective. Smart has five elements that helps
that it set specific goals. Through measurable it measures performance and sale of products,
achievable element use for motivate. And it also follows realistic and time bound that all
elements use for set objective for launch bags by M&S.
Swot analysis :- SWOT analysis is a tool of evaluate and analyse internal factors that impact to
organization and it helps in evaluate internal factors that regular impact on performance of marks
and Spencer.
Strength :-
Popular brand – Marks & Spencer is very popular retail company that sellclothes and
shoes and many more products at global level. It also understands to customers needs and wants
and fulfil customers needs.
Strong distribution channels – M&S has very strong and well distribution channels that
helps in distribute all product at global level. So it helps in fast distribution and also provide
quick services to customers of different countries.
weakness :-
Expensive product :- market sand Spencer has product is very costly so it reduces their
sales because customers of organization purchase less product on high rates and customers
ignore it. So it is a weakness for this organization (Shi, 2016).
Manual working increases cost – Marks and Spencer has weakness that it use old
techniques of marketing that so much consume cost and time. So it's a weakness of this

organization and it is very big organization so it has use to new technology for improve and
develop their services.
Opportunity :-
Expand business – marks and Spencer has opportunity to expand their business because
it does business at global level so it can easily expand their business through establish branches
in different countries. So it helps in increase profitability and productivity of organization.
Online presence – M&S has opportunity that it can easily boost their business because if
it increases online services to customers of different countries so it helps in increase profit of
organization (Singh, 2018).
Threats :-
Competitors – it has threat of increasing competition in markets because many other
organization establish their business with same product and same size so it divides customers
with different same organization and it sales decrease.
Changing trend – it sale clothes so fashion, choice and trend change frequently so it
has to also change their products according to trend and fashion and it creates difficulties and
wastage of products. It also consumes more time and cost.
Marketing mix – it is group of many elements that helps to Mark and Spencer for achieve
organizational goal and their objective. It launches bags so through 4 P's it makes plan about
place, product price and promotion and it helps in meet objective of Marks and Spencer.

Product – it launches bags of different type because it sale all product like clothes and
shoes. So now it producer bags because it wants to provide all goods and establish long term
relationship with their customers. It offers all types of bags with quality like office bags and
small handbag.
Price – price of bags is fix by marks and Spencer at very reasonable rate because it wants
to attract customers through their pricing strategy. Because it set prices according to all types and
class of peoples so it helps in increase sales of bags. So M&S adopt premium pricing strategy for
sale of bags that helps in increase numbers of customers and they purchase on cheap rate.
Place – M&S search and find for sale their bags so it focuses on target markets for
increase their sales and earn profit. So for increase sale of bags it targets official areas and
women abundant area that helps in increase sales of bags. And it also target markets that
developing.
Promotion – Promotion is one of the major elements through this M&S promote its
product. So it does advertisement by news, television, online and through social media it
promotes easily because nowadays social media is use by all people.
STP :-(Magal, 2017).
Illustration 1: 4 P's of marketing mix
[Source : The Four P's of Marketing, 2017]