Marks and Spencer Supply Chain Management: An In-Depth Report

This report provides a detailed analysis of Marks and Spencer's supply chain management. It begins with an introduction to supply chain management and its application to M&S, a multinational retailer. The main body of the report delves into key areas, including customer service and inventory management, exploring the strategies employed by M&S to meet customer demand and optimize stock availability through methods like safety stock and ROL. The report also examines transportation and logistics service providers (LSPs), highlighting M&S's use of trucks and air transport, as well as their partnerships with 3PLs. Warehousing practices, including supplier relationships and risk management, are discussed, along with capacity management strategies. Furthermore, the report explores M&S's competitive advantages and strategies at strategic, tactical, and operational levels, along with ways to improve their supply chain, such as automated purchasing and enhanced supply chain visibility. The report also addresses potential issues in logistics and supply chain management, and concludes with a summary of key findings and references to relevant sources.

SUPPLY CHAIN
MANAGEMENT

Contents
(1) INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY.............................................................................................................................................3
(2) Customer service and inventory.....................................................................................................3
(3) Transportation and LSPs................................................................................................................3
(4) Warehousing....................................................................................................................................4
(5) Strategy, competitive advantage and conclusion...........................................................................4
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................8

(1) INTRODUCTION
Supply chain management is defined as where organisation distribute their goods and
services from one place to another. In other words, it can be said that they convert their raw
material into finished product and then organisation sell their goods to customers. In the given
report, Marks and Spencer is taken as consideration. It is a multinational retailer who have 800
stores in different countries and operating in 1500 areas. The report includes about customer
service, transportation, warehousing and competitive advantage. Marks and spencer is selling
various products which include clothes, food and household products. There are some issues and
problem of logistics and supply chain management and there are issues that is perceived by
manager. The report also include about how manager can respond to the issues and there are
some suggestions in selected organisation that help them to improve their supply chain. The
selected organisation suppliers distribute the products at right time so that it helps them to
increase the market share and build customer experience.
MAIN BODY
(2) Customer service and inventory
Customer service is the main component of supply chain management and logistics as this is the
main area where organisation build their strategies in order to operate their business smoothly.
Moreover, to build customer experience they can satisfy the demand of customer. The products
available to customer as they are operating globally is that they are operating in 1000 stores
which are locates in United Kingdom whereas 450 stores in other countries which help them to
operate their business smoothly. The main thing is that they manufacture their products and sell
from their stores so that people can easily purchase their products. Inventory is defined as a
goods and services which is available for services (Khan and et. al., 2020).On the other hand,
Marks and Spencer use two types of inventory method so that they can improve the availability
of stocks.
The first method is safety stock which means that it helps selected organisation to balance the
demand of customers. They also handle the situation of prices which is fluctuated because of rise
and fall in demand. On the other hand, second method adopted by M&S is ROL as this is used
when the safety stock is reduced which means that organisation have to order. The service level
of M&S is 50-50 customer and service relationship. To manage their inventory selected
organisation have adopted EOQ and Pareto method. EOQ is used by M&S which help them to
understand that at which level they have to order their products. The second method which is
Pareto method which is used by organisation for doing work for about 20% so that they give
them 80% job to people.
(3) Transportation and LSPs
Transportation is defined as the movement of goods and services from one place to
another so it is very important for them to choose their location in an effective way. In supply
chain management they deliver their products in such a way that they can deliver the product on
time to customers. With the reference to selected organisation which is Marks and Spencer, that

they distribute and deliver their product by trucks. They also us air so that they can effectively
export and import their goods (Lin, 2017).
The air transport is used because some goods are of perishable nature so this is the fastest way to
move their goods and services from one place to another. In this way M&S use 3PLs for smooth
operation and provide services which include packing, receiving, shipping and many other
services.
To operate in e-commerce, they have chosen third party logistics as they manage inbound
and outbound transportation. This help selected organisation use this because it helps them to
lease warehouse so that they can keep their product and ship them from same place. There is
different logistic service provider (LSP) which is working with Marks and Spencer is that they
can develop their services which are The Russell group, WH Malcom and Stobart rail. The
respective organisation transports their goods either from air corridors or from airports as this
mainly depend upon the capacity. During the situation of covid-19 they have taken initiatives for
trading so that they can collect the funds for emergency relief.
(4) Warehousing
Warehousing is the place where organisation keep their products which can finished or semi-
finished. From warehouse the product moves from there to different stores in market. This factor
is the most important for supply chain management so that they deliver the best customer
experience to people. So, it is important for selected organisation to analyse each area and then
make effective strategy for smooth operation in their warehouse (Sauer and Seuring, 2019).The
first aspect is supplier relationship which means that M&S as they have to maintain cordial
relationship with their supplier so that they can produce the better quality products. The second
aspect is risk management which is defined as that there are various changes occur in business
environment which include political, external factors, change in demand of customer and so on.
In relation to Marks and Spencer, they have created a logistic software so that they can
overcome the issues in an effective manner. There are various steps for managing the capacity as
the first step is to check the current SLA levels. The selected organisation analyses and follow
the second step where they identify the capacity by using the technology. The third step is to
identify the future need by analysing the units so that they can fulfil the needs of customers. The
fourth step is to identify the opportunities for consolidation and on the other hand the last step is
to plan the capacity and recommend them to take action.
(5) Strategy, competitive advantage and conclusion
Competitive advantage: Marks and Spencer develop strategies so that they can remain
competitive advantage as they have to satisfy their customer. This can be done by reducing the
operation cost. With the reference to M&S, there are different types of department as they have
to focus on various level. The first level is supply chain at strategic level as according to
respective organisation as they develop business strategies related to supply chain so that they
can make effective decision in respect of supplier, sales, product and so on. The second level of
supply chain is at tactical level which means that organisation select logistic partner in order to
distribute their products (Singhal and Singhal, 2018).

This means M&S have better transportation facility so that they can solve issues which help
them to achieve business objectives. The last level is operational level which explains
handling their material system so that they can make various changes such as purchasing,
taking order, movement of products.
Ways to improve the organisational supply chain:
There are various ways so that the selected organisation which is Marks and Spencer can
improve their supply chain which is mentioned below: Automated purchasing: This is the best way to improve the supply chain which means that
Marks and Spencer use ERP system so that the software will automatically indicate when the
level of inventory reaches to minimum level. In this way employees can easily identify and
balance the inventory level of organisation. Analysing the performance of vendor: With the reference to Marks and Spencer, as they can
analyse and monitor their vendor which help them to achieve business objectives. This can
be done by the software so that they can supply their products on time. The selected
organisation can effectively distribute their goods and services to customer so that they can
enhance their productivity. Enhance the visibility of supply chain: This help organisation to increase the visibility of
supply chain which means that Marks and Spencer they can track inventory which will help
them to build the experience of customer. This can be done by improving supply chain as
they can deliver the products to customer in right place (Stindt, 2017). With the help of this
selected organisation can effectively build their brand image which not help them to retain
new as existing customers but they gain competitive advantage so that they can sustain in
market for long time period.
 Clear and transparency: Transparency is the most significant part of supply chain
management which help respected organisation to maintain their inventory in their
warehouse. They can effectively manage their supply chain internally so that they can
maintain the balance the inventory.
Issues or problems in logistics and supply chain management in relation to organisation
The problems in supply chain management as well as logistics hamper the
business process and operations in market place. There are many issues which is faced by
Unilever that are explained below:
 Quality customer service: It signifies that organisation has to predict the need and desire
in order to meet the requirement of customers so that they give the good quality of
products or services to them. Management of Unilever manage and operate their business
in multiple locations and provide their services to many people. They face challenges in
their business that each and every people have distinct wants from others and based on
that they offer various good or services in an appropriate manner.
 Risk management: This states that while distributing their products it occur many
problems by which they manage their risks accordingly in efficient and effective manner.
There are many challenges which is faced by Unilever such as users satisfaction and

stability of political as they deliver their goods or services in various countries and have
to follow different policies and procedure which involves risks in offering products to its
final consumer.
 Various channels in market: In context to Unilever, they supply their goods and
services in physical stores as well as online by which it involves huge costs in delivering
to their customers. However, the maximization of different types of cost such as
distribution cost, labour cost as well as wages affect the product cost which lead to
increase in price of goods.
Strategy of supply chain used by Marks and Spencer: They maintain their inventory as they
focus on reducing the manufacturing inventory cost and local warehouse. When there is high
demand the information the information is flow between the location of manufacturer to their
own stores. In this way they use the facilities of transportation so that goods are available in
market which lead to satisfy the need and demand of customer. The selected organisation
uses the facility of transport such as air and road. So, that they effectively distribute their
products in right manner (Wong and et. al., 2020). This help them to improve their supply
chain and logistics which ultimately help them to earn revenue and increase sales.

CONCLUSION
Supply chain management and logistics is the main part of selected organisation where
they distribute their goods by adopting effective logistics. They also manage their supply chain
and invest so that they can take material from them, manufacture, store and then deliver to
customer. There is customer service which means that that they have to build the better customer
service by proving them goods and services. The report also includes about transportation which
means that selected organisation they deliver their goods by air and road. The warehouse and
competitive advantage means that they develop business strategy which means that they can gain
competitive advantage. There are some issues which is occurred while conducting supply chain
management and logistic and there are some of the perceive that manager can respond them
effectively. In this way there are some suggestions that they can improve their supply chain.

REFERENCES
Book and Journals
Khan and et. al., 2020. A state-of-the-art review and meta-analysis on sustainable supply chain
management: Future research directions. Journal of Cleaner Production, p.123357.
Lin, H.F., 2017. Antecedents and consequences of electronic supply chain management
diffusion. The International Journal of Logistics Management.
Sauer, P.C. and Seuring, S., 2019. Extending the reach of multi-tier sustainable supply chain
management–insights from mineral supply chains. International Journal of Production
Economics, 217, pp.31-43.
Singhal, K. and Singhal, J., 2018. Opportunities for developing the science of operations and
supply-chain management. Journal of Operations Management, 30(3), pp.245-252.
Stindt, D., 2017. A generic planning approach for sustainable supply chain management-How to
integrate concepts and methods to address the issues of sustainability?. Journal of cleaner
production, 153, pp.146-163.
Wong and et. al., 2020. Unearthing the determinants of Blockchain adoption in supply chain
management. International Journal of Production Research, 58(7), pp.2100-2123.
Zaid, A.A., Jaaron, A.A. and Bon, A.T., 2018. The impact of green human resource management
and green supply chain management practices on sustainable performance: An empirical
study. Journal of cleaner production, 204, pp.965-979.