Strategic Marketing Management: A Case Study of Marks and Spencer

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This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Marks and Spencer's marketing management strategies. It begins with an introduction to marketing management principles and then delves into a SWOT analysis, identifying the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The report further examines the STP (Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning) model as applied to Marks and Spencer, detailing their market segmentation, target audience, and positioning strategies. A thorough analysis of the marketing mix (4Ps) – Product, Price, Place, and Promotion – is also included, outlining the company's product offerings, pricing policies, distribution channels, and promotional activities. Finally, the report concludes with recommendations for Marks and Spencer to enhance their marketing effectiveness and maintain a competitive edge in the retail market. Desklib offers a variety of solved assignments and past papers for students.
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Marketing management
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................3
SWOT analysis of the organisation...............................................................................................3
STP analysis of the organisation...................................................................................................6
Marketing mix of the organisation................................................................................................7
Recommendation to the organisation............................................................................................9
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................12
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INTRODUCTION
Marketing management is an art and science to choose the target market and growing
customers thorough the creating, delivering and the communicating superior customer value. It is
a process of the things done in an effective and organised manner. Marketing is a business
function which control composition and level of demand within the market. It mainly deals with
the creating and maintaining demands for the services and goods of the organisation. Main aim if
the marketing management is to operate the marketing activities efficiently. It make the process of
exchange of good and services very smoothly and efficiently transfer the ownership of goods
group seller to the buyer. It is the way of finding opportunities that are profitable and create these
opportunities to satisfy the customers. Marketing management helps to attract the new customers
and enhance sale of a company by different strategies to make sure that it attract maximum
customers and increase the profit ability. It is consumer oriented. It comprise of functions of the
planning, organising, directing coordinating and the controlling. The marketing management is
helps to identify opportunities in the market and comes up with an appropriate strategies to
explore these opportunities profitably. The organisation chose in this report is Marks and
Spencer, established in 1884 and its headquarter is situated in London, UK. It is a British leading
retailer company that provide the service of clothing, great value food and home ware products to
their customers. This report will include about marketing management, SWOT analysis, STP
matrix, marketing mix and recommendation of these issues (Barboza Sánchez and Urtecho Paz,
2021).
SWOT analysis of the organisation
It is an essential tool for a business to analysis and understand health of an organisation as
it allows the decision makers to determine where the organisation is stand and where they need an
improvement. It include four factors which are given below:
Strength- These are those things which the organisation perform well. It describe that
what a business excels at and what thing separate it from the competition in the market
such as a strong brand position, loyal customer base, unique technology and other etc
(Cassidy, Grimsey and Blackley, 2020).
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Weakness- These are those factors which stop the organisation to perform their optimum
level. These are those area, where a business require to improve to compete in the market.
It include a weak brand, high level of debt, higher than average turnover etc.
Opportunity- These are the favourable external factors which give a competitive
advantage to the organisation such as increasing market shares and sales, export a
company's product into a new market and other etc.
Threats- It refers to those factors which have the potential of to harm the organisations. It
include threats such as drought into a wheat producing company, destroy the crop yield,
increasing competition etc ( Cassidy, Grimsey and Blackley, 2020).
Importance of SWOT analysis.
SWOT analysis helps to an organisation to get visibility about their current status and
make enable them to measure and understand the overall business performance.
It allows a business to analyse their strength that in turn can assist them a better penetrate
in the market in order to meet their business objectives.
It helps a business to get visibility about their weaknesses and the potential areas of an
improvement. These informations helps them to plan future roadblocks and ensure a long
term growth of the business ( Chu, 2017).
By leveraging SWOT analysis, an organisation can make the strategic plan to meet their
desired objectives and also adopt the changing market conditions.
It is helpful for a business to understand and a better identify the external and internal
factors with their positive and negative effects on an organisation. This information helps
the business to take appropriate actions in the dynamic market for maintaining momentum.
Strength Weakness
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Marks and Spencer is one of the most
popular and powerful brand in the
market with a top of mind recall.
It has a great workforce globally as it
hire well skilled and trained employees.
They have over approximately 80000
workers within the world. These
employees design the products in a
quality and efficient manner.
It offer a large variety of the products to
their customers. It made a good
relationship with the local farmers to
bring the fresh and good quality
products to serves them to their
customers (PURNOMO, 2021)
M &S has to face a strong competition
with other popular retail brand in the
market, due to this it has only limited
market share.
It heavily relies on the manual operation
that is very time consuming and costly.
It does not invest so much in latest
technology due to which it has to face
many difficulties as compare to their
rivals.
In general public, there is a perception
that M&S do not offer the clothes for
today's younger and teenagers. They
provide services to only older peoples.
Due to this, the customers turn towards
other retailer .( Sánchez Ramos, 2020).
Opportunities Threats
M&S has the opportunity to expand
their brand in to the India and China that
help them to enhance increase their
loyal customer base.
By using latest technology and e-
commerce like eBay or Amazon, it can
give a tough competition to their rivals.
It will help them to improve their brand
quality and save the manufacturing cost
(Solanki, Daniewicz and
Newman ,2020).
It can follow the process of market
segmentation to divide their customers
Marks and Spencer is a global retailer,
due to this they have to follow rules and
regulation of other countries and
exposed to the different political facts.
Misuse of their brand for fake limitation
products can create a big hurdle for
M&S. So they need to protect their
brands from illegal uses ( Toscano
Rafael, 2020).
Their poor supply chain is a threat for
the M&S. It create the situation of no-
availability of the products due to
which, it continuously declining their
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in a group on similar basis. It will lead
to a large number of customers base and
also generate revenue for the company.
sales as it could not meet the
requirement of customer's demand for
clothing and food items.
STP analysis of the organisation
The STP (Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning) model is the familiar strategic
approach in the modern marketing. This model is mostly applied by the organisation in practice
for an efficient streamlined communication practice. It focuses on the commercial effectiveness,
choosing the valuable segment for any business and develop a marketing mix and the product
positioning plan of action for each segment. STP model is very useful at the time of creating the
marketing communications plans (Mogollón Terrones and Suarez Castillo, 2020). It helps to the
marketer or a business to prioritize the proposition and develop or deliver personalized the
relevant messages to different audience. In this, the STP model is applied on the Marks and
Spencer which are given below:
Segmentation- In this method, an organisation divide the extensive market opportunity in
more detailed segments through analytics or research. In this, the customers are divide on
their similarities. The segment is done on the basis of Demographic:- It involve the age,
gender, marital status, income, education and other etc. Psycho graphic:- It include the
personality, values, attitude, lifestyle and interest. Geographic:- It include the regions,
country,neighbourhoods and cities Behavioural:- Nature of the purchase, usage level,
brand loyalty, use of distribution channels and other etc. Marks and Spencer segment the
market on the basis of demographic as it divide customers based on the Cost conscious
group. It segment customers according to their age, social class, income and occupation.
They segment the market on the basis of few components such as which have good income
and high profession as well according their occupation (Coetzee and Middelmann, 2020).
Targeting- In this, a business select the right segments for targeting and plan the related
marketing activities. Main objective of the targeting is to research the every segment's
business opportunities with that aligns which is related to their goals. It target market on
the basis of Difference- The measurable difference should exist between the segments.
Criteria size- Market size must be large that is enough to justify the segmentation.
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Accessible- Every segments should be accessible and able to receive the company's
marketing message. Marks and Spencer target their customer on the basis of upper class
and the upper middle class. It target customers with 30 plus age group and high income
with executive occupation of targeted audience. They provide service and manufacture
product to consider the targeted audience. They made clothe for the middle age peoples
and fulfil their demands. They focuses on those customers which contain large area and
through what the company can earn more profit margin ( Cruzado Zafra, 2020).
Positioning- It is the last element of STP model. It is about to create products and
marketing strategies to fit a segment that is created by the business. It is very essential a it
help the organisation to know position offering to a chosen segment in order to get success
with their marketing strategy. To figure out the company's positioning they can use two
tools one is USP( unique selling point) and other is Positioning map. Marks and Spencer
positioning itself as high quality within reach. It has positioned itself as a premium brand
into the supermarket industry. It provide a good quality goods and services as compare to
the other competitors (Dhande and Khandare, 2021).
Marketing mix of the organisation
In this, there are 4 Ps of marketing that are key factors which are involved in the marketing
of a product and services. These factors are constrained by the external or internal factors in
overall business environment. These four element are undertaken by an organisation to identifies
some key factors for their organisation including a customer want from the company, how their
services fails or meet those demands,, how their services and products are perceived the global
area and how they interact with its customers. These 4P's are applied on the Marks and Spencer
which are given below:
Product- It is a good or services that is offered by a company to its customers. The
product fulfil l demands of an existing customer. It should be compelling to satisfy
customer's demand and create new demands. A marketer should understand the life cycle
of the products and need to plan to deal with the product at every stage of their life cycle.
Marks and Spencer offers fair trade products and eco- friendly goods to their customers.
They diversified their product on the basis of women, men, kids, beauty products,
furniture, food and home ware products. M&S provide good quality products and they
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cater different types of consumers which is very helpful for them (Giacomarra and et. al
2021).
Price- It is that cost which is paid by the customers for a product. A business should link
the real product's price and the perceived value. They must consider the supply cost,
competitor's price and seasonal discounts. Often, a business raise their product's price to
give it the appearance of being luxury. A marketer need to determine the cost and
discounts appropriately. Marks and Spencer adopt value for money pricing policy as it
diversify their product's range and good quality of products. It is a premium retail
supermarket as their many products are priced between the range of medium to high. M&S
has adopted the dynamic pricing policy and offers discount during off seasons, seasonal
time to their customers (Hàn, and Hương, 2020).
Place- It is related to the place in which an organisation decide that where it should sell
their products and how to deliver a product within the market. It refers to the placing of a
product in the certain stores and placement of the products on a particular store's display
The motive of a business is always to get the products in front of they customers that are
most likely to purchase them. Different types of products also partially dictates that how
much a business can charge for it. Marks and Spencer spread their presence in the global
market including Finland, Morocco, Ireland, Kabul, France, Spain,Qatar and other etc. it
has around 1000 stores across the 40 countries. It also launched their online shopping store
and provide the facility of home delivery to their customers (Jankowski, 2021.Khaba and
Bhar, 2017).
Promotion- It include the promotion of product thorough the advertising, PR and
promotional strategy. Main aim of the product's promotion is to reveal the customers that
why they should buy it and why they should pay for it. The marketers tend to tie placement
elements and promotion together in order to reach their target audience. This strategy
include the online and offline methods. Marks and Spencer does several sales promotion
with the purpose of increasing sales as it believe in full on the marketing policy with each
and every possible tool. They adopted both below the line and above the line marketing
strategies to make their presence felt. In this digital age the promotion and place factors are
as much online as they are offline. Their ads are placed in newspaper, television, radio and
other etc ( KURNIA, 2021).
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Recommendation to the organisation
On the basis of above issue there some recommendation in context of Marks and Spencer
to improve their strategies and taking competitive advantages.
It M&S should expand their business in other countries with reflecting the original quality
and price of their products. They can also introduce a new market segments that will offer
them ore profit with increased customer base. They need to improve their franchising in
the international market to capture more market share in the other countries. It is
recommended for them to focus on customer's choice or demand rather than focusing on
being product oriented (Kusuma, Nurdyansyah, and Fahyuni, 2020).
M&S is a old organisation and the younger are not ware about it. For this, they should put
hoardings in streets to attract younger customers. It should target the younger generation's
customers during their global expansion. Marks and Spencer should go for style rather than
the fashion because fashion comes and goes but the true style always lasts.
In order to become competitive, it is essential for the M&S to change their strategies . It
needs to develop core competencies that helps them to fight the competition globally. It
require to undertake new digital and latest technical opportunities to survive in the market
and compete with their rivals (LIand ZHONG, 2020).
When it develop their market then they should contact with more supplier and work with
them to run the supply chain effectively. They should consider the purchasing supplies
from the overseas to save their cost as as to it provide customer product at less price.
M&S must avoid temptation for getting dragged down on the price and make sure that it
stands out on a quality standard. By this, they can shown that what they achieved with
quality and stylish products. So, they should focus on quality not the price.
Marks and Spencer does not invest so much in technology, due to this it remain behind
from their competitors. It should invest in latest innovative technology to enhance
productive of products with maintaining quality. They can develop their websites as
maximum peoples can visit there and get information about their product and services.
This strategy will minimize their cost and save their valuable time.
It should focus on the growth of their online stores because e- commerce retailing is future
of shopping as customers are getting busy in online shopping to avoid the crowed places.
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Marks and Spencer should obtain the customers feedbacks and opinions to keep up with
current fashion trends in clothings line also research in food and the home appliance
sectors. It will help them to get information that what the customer wants and what the
company needs to improve (Mishra, 2020).
To sustain their strategics sustain for a long term, they should examine their core
competences that include the inhabitability and value to customers as the consumers so not
get the value for money as the rivals are offering products at cheaper prices.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it is concluded that, marketing management is very essential top
attract more customers with high profit margin. It include all those activities which are helpful for
a business organisation to grow their business. In this report, the Marks and Spencer is chosen to
applying all the strategies. The SWOT analysis is very essential for a business to identifies its
strength to minimize their weakness to reduce their lacking points. It also helps to determine
opportunities that the business can uses for their growth and eliminate threats that impact their
functions adversely. The another tool is STP analysis as it make enable the organisation to
segment their customers on the basis of their personality, age, income etc. they can target tehir
chosen market effectively that will be profitable to them and easy to fulfil their demands. It
positioning M&S as premium brand. To operate a business successfully marketing mix is very
essential as it define the company's product, price, channel of distribution and channel of
communication to reach the target audience. After determine all these issues, the recommendation
is given to the respective company to overcome these issues by adopting new strategies and
change in their functioning method. So, it is very essential for a business organisation to adopt all
these approaches in order to run their business effectively and efficiently.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Barboza Sánchez, L.J.A. and Urtecho Paz, J.I., 2021. Marketing mix y ventas en tiempos de
Covid-19 de la empresa Lencería Merc SRL, Lima 2020.
Cassidy, K.J., Grimsey, W. and Blackley, N., 2020. The contribution of physical retail to value co-
creation in the town centre ecosystem; evidence from Grimsey. Journal of Place
Management and Development.
Cassidy, K.J., Grimsey, W. and Blackley, N., 2020. The contribution of physical retail to value co-
creation in the town centre ecosystem; evidence from Grimsey. Journal of Place
Management and Development.
Chu, C.F., 2017. Application of STP Theory of Luxury Market in Taichung.
Coetzee, J.H. and Middelmann, M.C., 2020, March. SWOT analysis of the fynbos industry in
South Africa with special reference to research. In IV International Protea Working
Group Symposium 453 (pp. 145-152).
Cruzado Zafra, W.D., 2020. Marketing mix y satisfacción de los clientes de la empresa
Tecnobloques EIRL, Pacasmayo, 2020.
Dhande, M.S. and Khandare, S.S., 2021. Energy consumption in steel plant by SWOT Analysis.
Giacomarra, M. and et. al.,2021. The ability of fish ecolabels to promote a change in the
sustainability awareness. Marine Policy. 123. p.104292.
Hàn, H.N. and Hương, N., 2020. Nâng cao hoạt động marketing-mix đối với dịch vụ internet cáp
quang của công ty Cổ phần Viễn thông FPT-chi nhánh Quảng Trị (Doctoral dissertation,
Trường đại học Kinh tế Huế).
Jankowski, J., 2021. Tax Consolidation Regime in European Union: Towards One Unified
Approach Among All Member States?. EC Tax Review, 30(3).
Khaba, S. and Bhar, C., 2017. Quantifying SWOT analysis for the Indian coal mining industry
using Fuzzy DEMATEL. Benchmarking: An International Journal.
KURNIA, F.A., 2021. ANALISIS PENGARUH GREEN MARKETING MIX DAN ETIKA
BISNIS ISLAM TERHADAP LOYALITAS KONSUMEN PADA PRODUK
TUPPERWARE DI BOYOLALI.
Kusuma, A.D.K., Nurdyansyah, N. and Fahyuni, E.F., 2020. Sharia Marketing Strategy in
Attracting the Interest of Students of SD Muhammadiyah Satu Sedati, Sidoarjo.
Proceedings of The ICECRS, 7.
LI, J.B. and ZHONG, M., 2020. SWOT Analysis and its Application in an Enterprise [J]. Journal
of Kunming University of Science and Technology, 6.
Mishra, P., 2020. Emerging trends in Indian retailing. Journal of Retail Marketing & Distribution
Management. 1(1). pp.1-6.
Mogollón Terrones, P. and Suarez Castillo, C.M., 2020. El marketing mix y la fidelización del
cliente en la Distribuidora Ferretera Sullón, Chepén, 2019.
PURNOMO, A.A., 2021. PENGARUH ISLAMIC MARKETING MIX TERHADAP MINAT
MASYARAKAT MENJADI NASABAH BANK SYARIAH DENGAN CITRA
PERUSAHAAN SEBAGAI VARIABEL MODERATING (STUDI MASYARAKAT
KOTA SALATIGA).
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Sánchez Ramos, B.F., 2020. El marketing mix y las ventas en la empresa Thais Corporation SAC,
Lima, 2020.
Solanki, K., Daniewicz, S.R. and Newman Jr, J.C., 2020. Finite element analysis of plasticity-
induced fatigue crack closure: an overview. Engineering Fracture Mechanics. 71(2).
pp.149-171.
Toscano Rafael, N.Y., 2020. Marketing mix y posicionamiento de la marca Reynaldo Los Olivos,
Lima, 2020.
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