Marks and Spencer Leadership and Management Practices: A Case Study

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Leadership and Management Practices
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
A brief history and summary of the business and rationale for choice...........................................4
Vision, leadership style, management practices and strategies employing different theories.........5
Implementation by the company with examples.............................................................................6
Recommendations to the company..................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9
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Introduction
Over 135 years of business, Marks and Spencer is one retail brand, which has seen substantial
growth as well as downfalls. That’s not all, the company though faced plunges, has again revived
its old position by applying modern and better strategies. In the following study a brief history
about the company is discussed along with a summary of their business. Next is the vision the
company, leadership styles it follows and has been following and lastly the strategies it takes up
to perform its optimum. Following that is a section where the implementation styles are written
along with examples and later to that is a list of recommendations, which if followed, can be
fruitful for the future operations and profit margins.
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A brief history and summary of the business and rationale for choice
Established in the year 1884 the company Marks and Spencer is one of the renowned retail giants
in the world. The company was founded by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in Westminster,
London. The company deals with clothes, home products and luxury food products. The motto of
the company is to deliver the best for its customers. The company, through its lifecycle, have
seen a number of ups and downs and the company has recaptured the lost name subsequently.
The company has its operating income of over £670 million, a revenue income amounting to
over £10698 million and a net income of £29 million. It has more than 80000 employees all over
the world (Annual report, 2019). The chairman of the company is Archie Norman and under the
leadership of his company has seen quite establishments.
The company had a policy of selling only British made goods and therefore the company entered
with relationships with British manufacturers which till today is an upper hand for the company
as the supply chain is very string for the company (Marksandspencer.com, 2019). The company
has its stores in Afghanistan, Canada, United States, France, Germany, Austria, India, Belgium,
and significant other developing and developed markets.
The company saw its success peaks in the year 1998 though within a few years the Marks and
Spencer saw its financial decline due to rising cost for suppliers, rival retailers and similar other
factors. The brand faced a plunge which squeezed up the investments for the company. Though
the strategies were changed later by the delegates and within a few years the company revived its
lost position.
The rationale for the choice is simple. The company had seen a lot of ups and downs throughout
its lifecycle. The leaderships, visions, management strategies have changed with time. Though
they have seen so much still has maintained the position and the brand name. This specifies that
they can adjust to any kind of situation employing various strategies as and when required.
Though they maintain to be on the top-list there are competitor companies who also maintain
better. The strategies and theories implemented by Marks and Spencer is surely the best but can
be improved through little improvisations. Each strategy used according to the change of the
environment can be beneficial and with combined strategies the situations can be handled in an
ease.
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Vision, leadership style, management practices and strategies employing different theories
Vision of the company describes about the mid-term or long-term goals of the organization. It is
basically a clear, concise and aspirational description which states what the company would like
to achieve in the future. The vision statement of Marks and Spencer is “The standard against
which all others are measured”. This specifically states that they want the people to associate the
brand name with the best with respect to quality, quantity service etc. (Ahmed, 2016). They want
themselves to be the benchmark of the whole retail industry and therefore, this statement is pretty
aspiring though in simple words.
There are various types of leadership styles amongst which few are followed by the companies.
Autocratic leadership, democratic leadership, strategic leadership, transformational leadership,
team leadership, cross cultural leadership, facilitative leadership, transactional leadership,
coaching leadership, charismatic leadership, visionary leadership and laissez-faire leadership are
some of the known and used leadership styles used by organizations(Holten and Brenner, 2015).
Leaders are envied as they have the tremendous charisma to influence and thus they are the ones
responsible for taking decisions (Iqbal et al., 2015). Though Marks and Spencer have influential
leaders they believe in teamwork, thus a team decision is preferred by the company. The
company follows democratic leadership, team leadership, facilitative leadership and
transformational leadership depending on the situations they face. Therefore, at various
situations the Marks and Spencer applies different leadership style to outline the decision and
eventually implement the change as required.
The company was selected as ‘employer of choice’ in the 20th century. According to the
employees all the needs are met. The company believes that performance reaches sky-height if
the personnel are happy. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs each individual has a certain
kind of need which the company understand s and tries to fulfil which delights the employees
resulting customer satisfaction and better sales(Purvis, 2015).
In marketing the company believes that best results can be achieved through word-of-mouth as
70% of population relies on friends, family and acquaintances. They also believe in
advertisements by models and celebrities. The slogan “Your M&S” is one renowned example.
The company also understands that operations are one most crucial part of the improvement.
Therefore the company believes in theories such as ‘TOWS’, six-sigma approach, Just-in-time
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approach (Brauner, et al., 2015). The research and development employs theories such as the
PESTEL, SWOT, Porter’s Five model, The Six-sigma approach and Just-in-time approach are
extensively effective in managing the operations, logistics and supply chain for the company post
evaluating the opportunities and threat that can occur in business operations.
The company also believes in Fayol’s 14 principles of management though till 2000 they
followed Bureaucratic theory in management. The company is trying to improve and if situation
demands the company also uses the behavioural theory by Elton mayo.
Implementation by the company with examples
Marks and Spencer has always been a company who were concerned about their employees.
According to them the employees are base of the company and better results can be achieved
through employee happiness. Marks and Spencer therefore understand the needs of the
employees and tries to fulfil their needs optimally (Angeles, 2016). For example Marks and
Spencer employee has all the benefits such as Paid leave, insurances, paid travel holidays, proper
increment and incentive structures. The company is empathetic towards the needs of the
employees.
The leadership style has suffered a number of changes. Initially the style was more of a cross-
functional and transitional leadership, in between it was a mixture of autocratic and democratic
leadership, now it is concentrated on democratic and team leaderships and also facilitative
leadership (Smythe, 2017). The company believes extensive interactions are done by base
employees in understanding the needs, wants and current trends of the market, only possible by
those employees. Therefore, they can come up with better solutions and decisions. Though there
are some decisions which are taken up by the delegates but that too in a group leadership or team
effort.
Marketing is a crucial department of any company and Marks and Spencer had been relying on
the fact that word-of-mouth can do wonders to the company. As a matter of fact it served well
until the technology arrived. Then the company went for better advertisement campaigns with
influential celebrities and today it aims to be seen and discussed brand in social media.
The company follows strategies in operations management which has worked out splendid for
the company. Before venturing on any project the research team outlines the risk factors. The
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external and the internal environment are analysed through SWOT, PESTEL, TOWS,
Competition theory, BCG matrix etc. After detecting sufficient growth and returns in the project
the team determines to proceed. Also, the company ensures a smooth operation through Six-
sigma approach and Just-in-time approach where the products reach the customer at the moments
of need (Hayes, 2018). Being one of the biggest retailer in the industry strategies like these help
a lot.
Till 2000 the company used a bureaucratic approach as the company delegates were from the
same family. But the path has changed now and the company is looking for avenues to sustain
the position in the high competition market. Therefore they have stratified the whole process into
14 divisions and follows Fayol’s approach towards better management.
Recommendations to the company
The company is now changing for a better future and understanding the needs of the employees
are crucial to get results. Though the company could use the Principles of scientific management
where the company officials study the jobs and find out optimum operational ways to perform it
better, train the employees accordingly and establish a better level of performance premium. This
can motivate the employees which can increase the performance. Though they use Maslow’s
hierarchy the company also should use the behavioural theory where the employees should feel
their importance in the company which would give a positive impact for every change (Berryet
al., 2016).
Leadership styles are also vivid and the company uses different styles depending on situations.
Vandevelde’s leadership states that the core values are important and customers should face a
closer interaction (Eccles et al., 2015). Laissez-faire should be used to those departments where
there are key employees and the employees know the products, culture and dealings of the
company. Thus, the company should trust the premier employees and offer to take leader’s role
if situation requires. The company should also think about the consultative approach of
leadership where the company key employees are engaged in making important decisions
relating to the products and services.
The company should think about the competition and keeping up with the trends is a requirement
for sustainability (Christy, 2015). The company should built a strategic clock for differentiation
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from other renowned brands. The company should also see to the cultural web where the
company should reframe the Rituals and routines, symbols, controlling system, organizational
structure and a power structure. The pricing strategies should also be restructured in order to
maintain the position in the current market (Trigeorgis and Reuer, 2017).
Engaging workers should be prime motto for the company and see to whether they are well
trained, committed to their work and gives effort to finish the job. The employees who are
performing best should be rewarded. Clarity should be present in the communication modes so
that the decisions and changes are perceived as they actually are. Team effort is also a necessary
(Noe et al., 2017). The company should adhere to meeting and cultural cohesiveness should be
present in order to achieve superior results. Communications should be more crisp and simple in
order to make every person understand. Each employee should be noticed and feedback for their
improvement should be provided
Cross-functional communication is also an important factor that needs to be scrutinized as the
operational activities may gain its ultimatum due to this factor. Just-in-time is a great method
until the communication is best.
The operational, marketing and research theories are okay though they can be improved. The
core competence theory by C.K Prahlad can make things easier for management. The functional
departments should be given equal attention and the employees should have transparency in their
job profile. These are some recommendation that, if followed, the company can gain better with
respect to profit margin as well as maintaining the employees with a better performance as a
whole.
Conclusion
In the above study,a brief summary of the company, the leadership styles, vision of the company
and the strategies have been shown briefly. The implementation methods are also portrayed for
the company. Lastly, a recommendation list has been provided in order to gain a better market
share. The company Marks and Spencer is already a renowned retailer though there exists heavy
competition in the globalised markets. In order to face and fight the issues the company needs to
implement theories and strategies which are a mixture of the modern and traditional thinking.
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References
Ahmed, U., 2016. Marks & Spencer: A Global Expansion to Acquire Lost Momentum?. In
Market Entry in China (pp. 61-72). Springer, Cham.
Angeles, R., 2016. Marks & Spencer’s RFID Initiative: Laying the Foundation for Omnichannel
Retailing. In Digitally Supported Innovation (pp. 193-206). Springer, Cham.
Annual report. (2019). Annual report. [online] Available at:
https://corporate.marksandspencer.com/annualreport [Accessed 10 Apr. 2019].
Barkema, H.G., Chen, X.P., George, G., Luo, Y. and Tsui, A.S., 2015. West meets East: New
concepts and theories. Academy of Management Journal, 58(2), pp.460-479.
Berry, A.J., Broadbent, J. and Otley, D.T. eds., 2016. Management control: theories, issues and
practices. Macmillan International Higher Education.
Brauner, Y., Dourado, A.P. and Traversa, E., 2015. Ten Years of Marks & Spencer. Intertax,
43(4), pp.306-314.
Christy, G., 2015. CSR and human resource management. Corporate social responsibility, Sage,
London, pp.72-102.
Eccles, R.G., Krzus, M.P. and Ribot, S., 2015. Models of best practice in integrated reporting
2015. Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, 27(2), pp.103-115.
Hayes, J., 2018. The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave.
Holten, A.L. and Brenner, S.O., 2015. Leadership style and the process of organizational change.
Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36(1), pp.2-16.
Iqbal, N., Anwar, S. and Haider, N., 2015. Effect of leadership style on employee performance.
Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review, 5(5), pp.1-6.
Marksandspencer.com. (2019). Welcome to Marks & Spencer. [online] Available at:
https://www.marksandspencer.com/ [Accessed 10 Apr. 2019].
Noe, R.A., Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B. and Wright, P.M., 2017. Human resource management:
Gaining a competitive advantage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
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Purvis, M., 2015. Direction and discretion: the roles of centre and branch in the interwar
management of Marks and Spencer. History of Retailing and Consumption, 1(1), pp.63-81.
Smythe, J., 2017. Your Default Approach to Engagement: Enabler or Disabler?. In The Velvet
Revolution at Work (pp. 89-102). Routledge.
Trigeorgis, L. and Reuer, J.J., 2017. Real options theory in strategic management. Strategic
Management Journal, 38(1), pp.42-63.
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