Retail Theory and Practice Report: Marks and Spencer Strategies

This report offers a comprehensive analysis of the retail landscape, focusing on Marks and Spencer (M&S) within the UK fashion industry. It begins with an introduction to retail concepts and the company, followed by an examination of key changes in the UK fashion retail sector, utilizing PESTLE analysis to identify political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors impacting the industry. A SWOT analysis is then used to assess M&S's internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats. The report concludes by suggesting and discussing marketing strategies and tactics that M&S could implement to address challenges and capitalize on opportunities, including engaging with customers, employee payment changes, and the adoption of analytical technology for data-driven decision-making. The analysis provides valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities facing M&S in the dynamic UK fashion retail market and offers recommendations for future success.

RETAIL THEORY AND
PRACTICE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction to retail........................................................................................................................1
Introduction to the company............................................................................................................1
Key relevant changes within the UK fashion retail.........................................................................2
Relevant changes within the micro environmen..............................................................................3
Suggest and discuss strategies and tactics that could be used.........................................................4
Recommendations............................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
REREFENCES................................................................................................................................8

Introduction to retail
Retailing can be defined as selling or buying of goods. It can also be defined as timely
delivery of goods and services that are demanded by the customers at an affordable and
competitive price (Vallati and Grassi, 2019). Retailing concept is based upon four main
principles. First is that retail sector is customer oriented in which retailers need to understand
needs of their customers in order to fulfil and satisfy their needs and demands in a better manner.
it is a coordinated effort where retailer integrates all activities and plans for maximum efficiency.
Retailing sector is value driven and lastly it is goal oriented. Fashion retail sector is a section of
retail sector that acts as an intermediate between customers and manufacturers. Fashion retail is a
process in which buying cloths from the manufacture is done and is sold to the customers. many
big organizations in this sector even manufacture their own cloths.
Introduction to the company
‘Marks and Spencer’ is one of the major retail sector organization and is one of the major
multinational British retailer company. It was founded in 1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas
Spencer’s in Leeds in United Kingdom. Main headquarter of Marks and Spencer is in London,
England in UK. Marks and Spencer sell various kinds of products and specializes in selling
clothing, home products and food products but out of these majorly they sell clothing products
for men, women and kids of all age group. They have more than 1450 stores world wide and
operates globally. They also have approximately 80,000 employees working for them globally.
Out of 1450 stores, approximately 959 stores are present in UK itself. They are one of those
public limited retail sector organization that has been listed on the London Stock exchange. They
are one of those organizations that provide latest fashion retail clothing items. Not only clothing
items but they also sell latest fashion home decor items and they offer these products to
customers in different types of stores such as: Full line stores that offers homeware and beauty
ranges with clothing’s products to customers. outlet stores that provides discounts on
approximately all the products. Other than this they also have their own online service stores in a
particular niche market where they provide products such as clothing, home décor and many
more for the customers and also provide free home delivery above a certain amount. Marks and
Spencer have established themselves in an excellent manner specifically in the market of UK.
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Key relevant changes within the UK fashion retail
Fashion retail industry is one such industry in which needs and requirement of customers
changes continuously by time to time. There are various kinds of external macro environmental
factors that impact fashion retail industry of UK. In order to identify key relevant changes within
UK fashion retail then it is important to analyse macro environmental factors using PESTLE
analysis. PESTLE analysis will help in identifying and analysing various forces or factors that
can affect fashion retail industry of UK both positively and negatively.
Political Factor: Decision of UK to leave EU i.e. Brexit has increased uncertainty in trade
restrictions in Europe (even though it has not been passed). This has impacted profit margin for
organizations in fashion retail industry (PANDEY, 2017). Impact of this factor has been
moderate upon organization that deal in this industry. Another political factor that has impacted
this industry is that government has increased taxes upon goods because of which profitability of
the organizations in this industry has been impacted. Due to the global Covid-19 pandemic
government has imposed restriction of operating upon most of the industry including UK fashion
retail industry which has impacted this industry highly.
Economical Factor: Due to Covid-19 pandemic disposable income of customers has decreased
drastically as a result their spending habit has also changed a bit. This has been one of the most
important factors that has impacted this industry and there has been a decline in sales of overall
products of services. As it is already known that fashion industry trends and fashion changes
continuously according to season and due to decreasing disposable income of customers their
focus has shifted from top fashionable items to affordable items because of which many
organization of UK fashion retail has been forced to bring shift within their pricing strategy in
order to sustain within the market.
Social Factor: it is one of the major factors that can impact UK fashion retail industry.
Changing customer preferences and choices impact retail industry. Organizations that
continuously bring changes within their product range as per the changing preference and
fashion trend of customers helps the organizations to sustain within this industry. It also impacts
sales and popularity of type of products (Brandsma, 2018). Many organizations in this industry
have changed their way of serving their customers and focuses upon providing a personalized
service to their customers in order to attract a greater number of customers.
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Technological factor: Today it has become extremely important for fashion retail industry
organization to focus upon adopting advance technology in order to sustain within the market.
This factor can both positively and negatively impact UK fashion retail industry. Many
organizations in this industry have focused upon launching their own website where they can
display their products and services offered by them to their customers in order to attract a greater
number of buyers. Not only this, many organizations in this industry have also adopted analytical
tools in order to analyse changing customer preferences and trends so that they can bring
changes within their products and services accordingly.
Legal Factor: Every year increasing national minimum wages rates also impacted UK fashion
retail industry as it is not a compulsion that with increasing minimum wages rate, sales and
profitability of the organization would also increase (Shatskaya, Samarina and Nekhorosheva,
2016). Increasing workplace health and safety legislation has also impacted work of all the
manufacturers of UK fashion retail industry.
Environmental Factor: Today many customers are focusing upon adopting environment
friendly products and services which has impacted many industries including fashion retail
industry. Due to increasing focus of customers upon environment friendly products and forced
organizations in this industry to focus upon using environment friendly materials, focus upon
environment friendly packaging and many more.
Relevant changes within the micro environmen
In order to analyse relevant changes in micro environment of Marks and Spencer SWOT
analysis can be used. SWOT analysis is one of the nest micro environmental analysis model that
can be use by organization for analysis of impact of micro environmental factors upon the
organization. SWOT analysis of Marks and Spencer has been explained below:
Strengths: One of the main strength of Marks and Spencer is that they have an excellent brand
recognition in UK retail sector market (Roth, 2017). They have great reputation of providing
high quality products and services to their customers. their brand is globally recognizable as
there are approximately 1463 stores present globally. Recently they had become second best
super store in UK.
Weaknesses: One of the main weakness of Marks and Spencer is their bad publicity of a non-
trendy store that sells out fashioned cloths (Phadermrod, Crowder and Wills, 2019). Due to this
many youngsters think that Marks and Spencer provide fashionable products for older people
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only. Due to this their sales has been continuously decreasing. Other than this their most of the
business operations are manual which is both time and money consuming. Another one of their
main weakness is that they rely too much upon fashion retail market of UK other than other
stores present globally.
Opportunities: they can focus upon expanding their market to other developing countries. Focus
upon internationalization of the brand will also help them to reduce their too much reliance UK
market. They can also focus upon reshaping their clothing segment and should focus upon
analysing and introducing trend and fashion products preferred by youngsters in order to attract a
greater number of youngsters towards their products and services (Jin, Miao and Park, 2018).
They can also focus upon expanding their online presence and making it available to their
customers present globally.
Threats: Increasing competition for Marks and Spencer is one of the biggest threats for them.
Some of the main competitors of Marks and Spencer are Tesco, ASDA, Morrisons, Sainsbury
and many more (Eisenberg, 2019). They face tough competition with these competitors
especially in UK market. Increasing competition has made it difficult for Marks and Spencer to
gain competitive advantage.
Suggest and discuss strategies and tactics that could be used
Marketing tactics and strategies are one of the most important factors which is required to
be focused upon by organization in retail sector as it helps them to identify and handle all kinds
of issues related to their business. It also helps an organization to sustain within the market and
gain competitive advantage as well. There are various kinds of tactics and strategies that can be
used by Marks and Spencer to tackle sone of that and biggest influential factors that have been
identified in macro and micro environment analysis.
To attract youngsters with social networking websites and enhancing their own website: It
is an initial step which is required to be taken by Marks and Spencer. They need to bring changes
within their products development and focus upon bringing changes within their products
according to the changing trend and customer preference of youngsters (Rosman and et. al.,
2020). After this they can focus upon marketing of their new product development upon their
own website, social media and should focus upon providing all the details of their new product
range to their customers so that they can attract young age people as well.
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Bring changes with their employee payment structure: Marks and Spencer is continuously
growing and is still continuing to expand not only in market of UK but globally. Due to changes
in minimum wages rate in UK their overall revenue is getting impacted and it is also impacting
upon their employee retention rate (Payne, Peltier and Barger, 2017). In order to increase their
employee retention rate and reduce impact of increasing national minimum wages rate upon
overall operations of the business Marks and Spencer should bring changes within their overall
payment structure. Instead of increasing salary or wages of people every year Marks and Spencer
can adopt incentive system i.e. if any employee’s performance well achieve their defined target
then they should be provided within incentive. This will not only increase overall performance of
employees but will also help them in motivating and retaining their employees within the
organization.
Enhancing engagement within customers to tackle Covid-19 situation: it is extremely
important for every retail sector organization to engage with their customers in order to identify
needs and requirements of their customers in a better and appropriate manner (Chernev, 2018).
Marks and Spencer can focus upon providing training to their current employees so that they can
engage with their customers in a prier and effective manner in different ways such as though
social networking sites, asking for suggestions or feedback, being open to all the queries of their
customers and many more. These methods will help Marks and Spencer to engage with their
customers in a proper manner.
Adopt analytical technology so that data driven decisions can be taken: today due to
increasing competition in retail sector it has become extremely important for organizations in
this industry to adopt advance technology so that they can collect and analyse their customer data
such as their buying behaviour, products and services liked most by the customers. Collection
and analysis of this data will help the organization to analyse their products and services and
preferences of their customers as per their segmentation. This data will further help Marks and
Spencer to take effective and required decision accordingly.
Pull and push marketing strategy: Pull and push are two type of strategies that can be used by
Marks and Spencer for promotion of their products and services (Avlonitis, 2016). Push strategy
can be used by Marks and Spencer to manufacture high quality products and services for their
customers and also make people aware about their functionality and purchasing scheme. The
main focus of this strategy is to make people aware about organizations products, services and
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their brand value. The main focus of this strategy is to bring improvement within internal
processes of the business. Pull strategy is used for business development in order to increase
overall profitability of Marks and Spencer in the market. This strategy helps the organization to
attract a greater number of customers towards their products and services. this strategy is majorly
used to bring improvement within communication way of organization, promotions, marketing,
advertising and many more. Both the strategies can be used by Marks and Spencer in different
ways such as: Push strategy can be used by them to make young age people aware about their
products and development in new variety of products for them. Whereas pull strategy can be
used by Marks and Spencer for generation of interest and demand of their newly developed
products and services among their targeted customers that are majorly youngsters.
Recommendations
Here are few recommendations that can be used by Marks and Spencer so that they can
overcome identified changes in a proper manner: First and the foremost recommendation for
Marks and Spencer is to adopt advance technology so that they can focus upon reducing their
manual work done by their employees. This will help them to reduce their time and cost spend
upon management of their business processes. Not only this, adaptation of advance technology is
also beneficial for them to analyse needs, requirements, taste and preference of their target
customers so that they can bring changes within their products and services accordingly. It is
highly recommended that Marks and Spencer should adopt advance technology so that they can
use it for analysis of their customers preferences and for decision making as well. Second, it is
recommended that Marks and Spencer should focus upon increasing their online presence as well
either with the help of their own website or web application or though social networking sites or
tying up with other e-commerce websites or applications. Increasing online presence will also
help them to interact with the customers easily. Online presence will help in providing a platform
to Marks and Spencer so that they can ask for feedback from their customers, suggestion or
answer their customers queries in a better manner.
Conclusion
From the above assignment it has been summarized that there are various kinds of
internal and external environmental factors that can impact fashion retail industry of UK both
positively and negatively. It is extremely important to analyse influence or impact of these macro
and micro environment factors upon business organizations that operate in this fashion retail
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sector so that they can identify key issues or challenges that can impact overall business
operations or process of the organizations that operate in this industry. Analysis of these factors
also help organizations that operate in UK fashion retail industry adopt changes that are required
to be brought within their business in order to overcome identified challenges in a proper and
structured manner.
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REREFENCES
Books and Journals
Avlonitis, G.J., 2016. Marketing Strategies and Tactics an a Period of Recession. Marketing of
Scientific and Research Organizations. 19(1). pp.21-32.
Brandsma, A., 2018. Digital marketing influence in the Dutch retail industry: Developing a
business plan for a digital marketing agency specialized in retail.
Chernev, A., 2018. Strategic marketing management. Cerebellum Press.
Eisenberg, P., 2019. Financial Analysis of Primark Stores Ltd. with regard to a Stock Exchange
Floatation (IPO). International Journal of Management. 7(1). pp.91-112.
Jin, H., Miao, Y. and Park, S.T., 2018. A Case Study of Marks and Spencer lost China. Journal
of Industrial Convergence. 16(2). pp.15-23.
PANDEY, B.C., 2017. Nike Inc-Complete Analysis: SWOT, PESTLE and Marketing strategy.
BookRix.
Payne, E.M., Peltier, J.W. and Barger, V.A., 2017. Omni-channel marketing, integrated
marketing communications and consumer engagement. Journal of Research in
Interactive Marketing.
Phadermrod, B., Crowder, R.M. and Wills, G.B., 2019. Importance-performance analysis based
SWOT analysis. International Journal of Information Management. 44. pp.194-203.
Rosman, D.A., and et. al., 2020. Marketing radiology services: strategies, tactics, and
experience. Journal of the American College of Radiology. 17(1). pp.148-151.
Roth, S., 2017. Parsons, Luhmann, Spencer Brown. NOR design for double contingency
tables. Kybernetes.
Shatskaya, E., Samarina, M. and Nekhorosheva, K., 2016. PESTEL analysis as a tool of strategic
analysis in international markets. SCOPE ACADEMIC HOUSE B&M PUBLISHING,
p.47.
Vallati, M. and Grassi, A., 2019, July. AI to Facilitate Legal Analysis in the PESTLE Context.
In The EMerging Technology conference (EMiT) 2019 (pp. 66-68). IET.
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