Business Environment Analysis Report: Marks and Spencer (M&S) - UK

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the business environment of Marks and Spencer (M&S), a multinational retail organization. It begins with an introduction and proceeds to conduct a PESTLE analysis, examining the political, economic, socio-cultural, technological, legal, and ecological factors impacting M&S, detailing both positive and negative effects. The report also includes an internal analysis, identifying M&S's strengths (brand value, product variety, multiple stores, and brands) and weaknesses (old-fashioned stock, increased costs due to manual work). Furthermore, it explores the interrelation between these internal factors and external macro factors, such as political stability, VAT, inflation, technological advancements, and competition. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of adapting strategies and policies to sustain market presence in response to changing social and political conditions. References from academic sources are provided.

Business and business environment

TOC
 Introduction
 Pestle analyses
 SWOT analyses
 Relationship between strength, weakness and macro factors
 Conclusion
 References

Introduction
 Present study is based on Marks and Spencer, it is
a multinational retail organisation is a private
company has its own legal rules and business
environment.
 Study will conduct pestle analyses of M&S and
will describe positive and negative impact of
these factors on business.

P4 negative and positive impacts of macro environment
upon business operation
Macro environment of Marks and Spencer includes political, economical,
socio-cultural, technological, legal and ecological factors that has direct or
indirect impact on its business.
Political factor
 Negative impact- Marks and Spencer was not following the standards
made by government and was charged for neglecting the safety regulation.
The two main political factors that affect M&S are political stability and
VAT
 Positive impact- Marks and Spencer has good interaction and work with
government to protect itself from legal procedures and to develop policies
to protect interest of general public. It responds to the government queries
available on their sites

Cont..
Impact of economic factors
 Negative impact- If there is a inflation in the economy of UK then probably
purchasing power of consumer will decrease and prices of goods and services of
M&S will also increase.
 Positive impact-The economy of the UK is an open economy ,its fiscal and
monetary policies are managed properly and it has plenty of disposable income
that is a good sign for the business so M&S should spend this disposable
income on its clothing as it need to concentrate more on fashion arena.

Cont..
Impact of technological factors
 Negative impact – To operate any new technology and software there should
be availability of skilled and technical people or employees in the organization ,it is
dangerous for Marks and Spencer, if its employees do not operate its new technologies
and software carefully.
 Positive impact – Modern IT helps in increasing productivity and lower costs
and also M&S has its online retail business that makes easy interaction with people .It
has already invested 100 million on new technologies to increase its efficiency.

P5 Internal analysis of organization in order to identify their
strength and weakness
Internal analysis of Marks and Spencer includes identifying its strength, weakness, opportunities and
threats of an organization-Strength
 Good Brand value
 Availability of variety of products
 Multiple stores
 Multiple brands
Weaknesses
 Old fashioned stock
 Increase in cost due to manual working

Opportunities and Threats
Opportunities
 Globalised
 Niche marketing
Threats
 Competition

P6 Strength and weakness interrelated with external
factors
Good brand values:-
 Marks and spencer is well-know brand in UK. They continues improve their quality, value
and customer experience through political factor. They makes their decision making
according to government policies. Marks And spencer have very good political relations that
help in future prediction of their branding of the products. Because with the help of political
factor the marks and spencer identify about the political stability and changes and also
protection and discrimination laws that affects business internal operations and activities.

Cont..
Increasing cost due to manual working:-
 Marks & spencer's biggest weakness is their manual
working. It can causes of bending, stretching and twisting of
heavy machinery. Their is lack use of technology increases
their cost of the product that ultimately affects the final price.
It is also hazards for employees who is doing manual work.
The final product price is increased that affects the sales of
the product. sales will reduce automatically profit will
reduce. So, the technology factors affects organisation
overall performance.

Conclusion
 It shows interrelation between various functional areas of organisation. There
are many macro factors that impact organisations overall performance.
 Due to changes in social and political condition firm has to make changes in
its strategy and policies so that it can sustain in market for longer duration.

References
 Hamilton, L. and Webster, P., 2018. The international business environment.
Oxford University Press.
 Kim, Y.S., Rim, H.C. and Lee, D.G., 2019. Business environmental analysis
for textual data using data mining and sentence-level classification. Industrial
Management & Data Systems. 119(1).pp.69-88.