HR7002 Organisational Behaviour: M&S Strategy & COVID-19 Impact

This report examines Marks & Spencer's organisational behaviour and global strategy, focusing on the challenges faced by the company, particularly the impact of COVID-19. It analyses the strategies employed by Marks & Spencer to achieve a competitive advantage, the challenges that affected the business, and how these challenges were managed in relation to leadership, culture, and human relations issues. The report also discusses the impact of the organisation's strategy on managing the challenges and the subsequent impact of these challenges on the organisation's overall strategy, utilizing frameworks like Porter's Five Forces and addressing aspects of leadership and cultural adaptation during the pandemic. Desklib offers a variety of solved assignments and resources for students.

Organisational behaviour
and global strategy

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report is in the context of Marks & Spencer which is a British multinational
organisation. This report delivers that how organisation strategies are formulated by the business
in order to adapt to external business environment challenges. This report focuses about the
range of strategies that the organisation has taken in order to accomplish the competitive
advantage in the marketplace, the challenges that affected the business, how these challenges
have managed by the business, how these challenges of impacted organizational strategies and
strategies that have impacted the management of challenge.

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................4
Presentation and justification on the choice of the selected company.........................................4
Determine the strategy of the organization utilizing the range of strategy content. Identify the
competitive advantage of your selected organisation..................................................................5
Discuss an event, challenge, transformation or merger/acquisition that affected the
organization.................................................................................................................................7
Analyse how the challenge was managed by the organization in relation to leadership, culture,
human relations issues.................................................................................................................7
Discuss how the organization’s strategy impacted the management of the challenge................9
Determine the impact of the challenge on the organization’s strategy......................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Organisational strategies or something which is determined by all the measures and
policies that have implemented by the business at a point of time in context of different
organizations opportunities and challenges. These strategies give a framework of carrying
different business activities with specific time period and resources involved. Without
organizational strategies it would be difficult to manage the business activities, thus, it becomes
crucial for formulating appropriate organizational strategy that best suits objectives of the
business. This report is in the context of Marks & Spencer which is a global organisation
headquartered in London, United Kingdom. The revenue of the business as per 2020 data is
1,018.19 Crores GBP which means that the business is a massive revenue maker and a global
market leader. The founders of the business are Michael marks and Thomas Spencer; the
business was founded in the year 1884 delivering its services to different parts of the world. The
association delivers variety of services Such as home improvement tools, banking services, food
services, beauty products, clothing. Taking Marks & Spencer as a chosen business organisation
this report delivers strategies That the association have taken in order to accomplish the
competitive advantage, discussion of a challenge that have affected organisation, how these
challenges have made by the business, and how these challenges have impacted organizational
strategies (Bakotić, 2016).
MAIN BODY
Presentation and justification on the choice of the selected company
Marks & Spencer is the one of the leading retailers in UK and in the global platform. As
per the research it shows that more than 21 million people visit the Marks & Spencer outlets each
week. The association fulfils to satisfy customer needs by delivering stylish, quality and great
value of clothes home products and food services to the customers (Balmer and Burghausen,
2015). The business was founded in the year 1884 by Michael marks and Thomas Spencer. It
was founded in the city of Leeds, UK. The company Started from a unique small stall that
displayed goods as per the price tag with slogan of “do not ask price a penny can be”. This
eye-catching slogan drove people with Medium and low income earning customers. Slowly the
Business began to grow and establish branches to become U.K.’s largest retailer. Marks &

Spencer is one of the most profitable and leading retailer in the international Market Place.
Marks & Spencer is a global retailer that delivers variety of services. Over different years Marks
and spencer’s have redefined and structured strategies and new ways and approaches of doing
businesses and hands in customer services. Marks & Spencer is a public limited company listed
under the store London stock exchange. The business executives formulate different strategies
and policies in order to manage each and every unit of the business in the most appropriate
manner and deliver value to the customers to maintain stability in the marketplace and
accomplish profitability goals. These organizational strategies involve that how the business
meets the both internal and external changing market factors, strategies for business growth in
the market place, identifying new opportunity is and challenges of the business, and so on and so
forth. thus, choosing Marks & Spencer as the selected business organisation is justified to
support the report with relevant information and real life examples is justified.
Determine the strategy of the organization utilizing the range of strategy content. Identify the
competitive advantage of your selected organisation.
In order to determine the competitive advantage of the Association in the marketplace.
Porter five forces model is being used to understand it better. Porters five forces model is a
strategic framework that determines strategic decisions taken by the business in order to deal
with the rising external competitions (Cuervo‐Cazurra, Mudambi and Pedersen, 2018). In order
to analyse the competitive advantage of the Marks & Spencer porter five forces is used. There
are different elements of porters five forces these are threat of new entrants, bargaining power of
suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitute products, competitive rivalry.
Threat of new entrants
There are different new entrants in U.K.’s economy that brings retail business innovations and
new ways of managing business and delivering value to the customers. These new entrants in the
retail segment brings a lot of trust and pressure to Marks & Spencer group. The employers in
Marks & Spencer adopts to policies and strategies such as bringing innovation in the market
offering that gives a reason to attract new customers and retain the old customers, developing
economies of scale in order to reduce and minimize the cost incurred, spending and investing on
research and development activities in order to track new trends and competition in the

marketplace and frequently define the business standards to improve the performance of the
business in the marketplace (Cuervo‐Cazurra, Mudambi, and Pedersen, 2019).
Bargaining power Suppliers
There are many companies and retail businesses that purchases raw materials from the suppliers.
Suppliers play an important role and a dominant position that can decrease the margins of the
Association. Powerful suppliers in the market place have power of negotiation where in the
charges higher prices of the products that delivers. In order to deal with the bargaining power of
the suppliers Marks & Spencer adopt different policies and strategies such as Establishing an
effective supply chain with different suppliers, identifying loyal and dedicated suppliers whose
business completely depends upon the association.
Bargaining power of buyers
The buyers in the market place wants to purchase products at the minimum prices. It puts a
pressure on the association in order to satisfy the consumer needs without contributing
profitability in the long run. In order to deal with the bargaining power of buyers the association
adopts strategies by establish large number of customers in order to reduce the bargaining
powers of buyers and improve the sales and production margins. Marks & Spencer develops new
products and services with innovating pricing strategies and discounts so that customers gets
attracted and the business can limit the bargaining power of buyers (Cuervo‐Cazurra and et.al.,
2017). The association adopts policies in order to set the right prices of the products and services
that not only meet the customer satisfaction but also the business profitability margin.
Threat of substitute products and services
Their different substitute products that meets customer satisfaction and delivers utility to the
customers in different ways. Marks & Spencer adopts policies and strategies in order to improve
services and customer experiences, the association establishes strategies in order to focus on the
core need of customers, strategies that increases the switching cost for the customers.
Competitive rivalry
With the rising competition in the external marketplace it becomes challenging for businesses
that might lead to healthy competitions and as well can result the biggest threat for business

failure. In order to deal with the competitive rivalry in the external marketplace, Marks &
Spencer Adopt Strategies in order to differentiate its products and services in the market place
such as developing products with the concept of sustainability, collaboration working with
competitors to enhance the market size and capture large market share (DURAC, 2017).
Discuss an event, challenge, transformation or merger/acquisition that affected the organization.
Addressing the challenges faced by different businesses in the global and both domestic market
is the negative impacts of the COVID-19 that reduced the GDP and economy in UK. COVID-19
negatively affected not only the businesses but also to the consumers that reduce their purchasing
powers. To businesses it affected in a pessimistic manner by reducing the profitability and sales
margin of the business, some businesses were even shut down or faced bankruptcy. Addressing
the negative outcomes and the challenges of COVID-19 that affected Marks & Spencer to a great
extent. COVID 19 crisis blew Marks & Spencer wherein the association had cut down approx.
7000 jobs. The retailer also reported that overall pre-tax loss of £87.6 million was incurred in the
six months of September of lock down. Marks & Spencer has faced the first table loss in all these
94 years of the business (Elsmore, 2017). Marks & Spencer clothing sales dropped for approx.
60% of the total sales with the three-month lock down in UK. Clothing and other varieties of
products and services offered by the association except the food services was treated as non-
essential that made business into huge losses. The due to COVID 19 the business also felt a huge
challenge for managing the workforce as the work was shifted to work from home. As a measure
the association adopted two different strategies in order to deal with the crisis of the COVID 19.
These strategies included changes in the existing strategies and deploy flexible decisions as per
covering the current challenges.
Analyse how the challenge was managed by the organization in relation to leadership, culture,
human relations issues
In order to address the challenge faced by the organisation, the business adopted different
strategies while mainly to focus on online channels in adopting to technologies that brings
efficiency incurs less cost and delivers maximum profitability and output for the business. In
relation to leadership, culture and human relation issues the business strategies.
Leadership

Trading and operational management business activities were delegated to specific business unit
heads (Gillam and Cosford, 2021).
Different working groups and committees have been disbanded by the Association. In order to
rightly managing an address different business activities and focus on each and every element.
The leaders in the association made decision of segregating the whole business units into smaller
teams to make faster and quick decisions and work more productively.
The organisation also have collaborated with Microsoft Teams in order to manage the internal
management through online platforms.
The leaders in the Association delegated roles and responsibilities with proper guidance to the
employees using these online platforms, wherein the employees were given work from home.
The employees in Marks & Spencer frequently video calls the employees in the workplace in
order to address employee engagement and communicate and encourage socializing we are
virtual platforms.
Encourage the virtual environment to work from home by open communication and Feedback
from the employees.
Culture
External environment
In order to address the cultural factors in the society, the association adopted different strategies
such as establishing stronger mode of online presence and communicational Channels with the
customers. With the current COVID-19 19 challenge the Organisation focused on delivering
value to the customers irrespective of their location. The association developed a strong bond
with their targeted customers by using online channels. Where in the customers have to login to
the company’s website order The desirable products and services and the company will deliver
the purchase products and services to the doorsteps of the customers. Marks & Spencer also
adopted strategies in order to deliver quality offerings to the customers using effective pricing
strategies by understanding the crisis and slowing down purchasing power of its customers. The
company also delivered products and services that includes active year so that the customers are
able to Keep themselves fit even sitting at home. The association promise to deliver quality food

services to the customers is respective of their locations. These approaches taken by the
association helped to enhance and improve and adopting to new ways for dealing with the crisis
(Griffin and et.al., 2020).
Internal management
The business also adopted strategies to manage the internal workforce culture. Wherein the
human resource manager and leaders in Marks and Spencer frequently communication and
delivering guidance and ethical values to the employees virtually so that the employees feels
engaged and comfortable towards their work. Maintaining data privacy, online training and skill
development, enhancing accountability and answerability, recognition and rewards are some
approaches adopted by the association in order to enhance the business culture.
Human relation issues
In order to manage the internal management of the organisation, employers in Marks & Spencer
adopted strategies to build motivation and engagement in the employees to feel positive even
working virtually behind the screens. The association adopted strategies such as offering fair
wages and salaries and additional incentives to the employees performing very well in order to
motivate and stimulate them to work better, enhancing communication by frequently delivering
them feedbacks of their performance and reducing issues of conflicts and chaos. The
organisation also enhanced the performance virtually by adopting technologies that brings
desirable changes and productivity at work. Wherein different teams were allotted with leaders
and managers to frequently control and monitor using performance metrics tools and other
analytical tools in order to analyse the growth and the level of performance (Maio and et.al.,
2020).
Discuss how the organization’s strategy impacted the management of the challenge.
COVID-19 has impacted Marks & Spencer business performance in economical manner
for which the business adopted measures of embracing technology and online penetration in the
marketplace. Association focus on online business that positively affected the business, the
Marks & Spencer is the second largest online clothing business and delivers other product
categories we are online platform. With the COVID-19 crisis the business has focused over
enhancing the online penetration. COVID-19 also enhanced and improved the food services of

the association. With the government guidelines of delivering essential services to the customers
Marks & Spencer enjoyed the food businesses growth (Mickan and Boyce, 2018). Marks &
Spencer food business have grown from a hype in number with enhanced varieties of food and
adding nutrition value, the business focused on enhancing the food quality and promised to
deliver value and satisfaction to its customers irrespective of the tough times. The association
grew the food businesses by switching into online platforms and addressing customer needs and
requirements by delivering online food services irrespective of the location. The company also
focused on reducing the prices for enhancing the sales and profitability margin of the food
business. The quality focus strategy taken by the business involved using organic and natural
food ingredients to enhance the nutritional value at affordable ranges. The company deployed its
employees on laying more focus on food business and management of customer services by
improved channels of communication and customer engagement. For the Clothing and home
products, the business focused on delivering products and services and adding clothing range
such as sportswear and active here so that customers are also able to keep themselves fit and fine
even sitting at home. The online business of Marks & Spencer grew with second largest online
clothing business in UK. The company established regressive marketing techniques of promoting
the brand and the variety of products it delivers to value the customer satisfaction and needs at
affordable ranges. With a huge threat on privacy and safety of the business adopting to virtual
platforms have also impacted the business in a negative manner for which the business has
deployed measures for enhancing protection and safety using technologies in embedded software
is to maintain the flow of work and safety to both business and customer data. The business has
also incurred extra cost for establishing online networks for which the association then adopted
strategies for using the available resources in the most judicious manner (Peng, 2021).
Determine the impact of the challenge on the organization’s strategy
The major business offerings affected by the COVID-19 crisis work clothing and home
products. Due to the COVID-19, Marks & Spencer faced huge economic and financial burdens.
COVID-19 has impacted organizational strategies in respect of different business functional
units such as marketing, customer relationship, internal management, financing, sales and so on.
COVID-19 has impacted overall organizational strategies and business loss. The internal
management have also affected, difficulty for embracing virtual teams and internal management
for business functioning, it brought this economies of scale to the business with huge cost

incurred on training in management to the employees so that they are able to adopt and embrace
the virtual platforms of managing the work assigned. Also affected the bricks and mortar sales
margin wherein the business switched to enhancing the online presence, it also affected customer
engagement wherein it became difficult for communicating with the customers and convince
them to purchase offerings of the company, the financial capacities of the business also got
affected increasing business liabilities and decreasing business assets (Wood and et.al., 2019).
CONCLUSION
In the above report, it was discovered that organizational strategies are crucial for any
business as it determines a specific set of activities and a proper structure that how different
activities are to be managed and conducted in a workplace. Organisational strategies are affected
by different challenges and opportunities, the business has to identify such challenges and
opportunities in the external and internal market place and formulate desired solution. The report
delivered the strategies that the business takes in order to accomplish the competitive advantage,
how distant factors have impacted the business performance and its strategies. And what are the
strategies that the business has taken in order to address the external business challenges.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals