Global Supply Chain: Marks & Spencer Supplier Relationship Analysis

This report reflects on Marks & Spencer's (M&S) relationship with its suppliers, partners, and outsource providers, highlighting the challenges faced by the company in its supply chain management. The report identifies issues such as poor supplier relationships, inability to meet changing customer needs, risk management deficiencies, and an inefficient supply chain. It emphasizes the importance of strong supplier relationships for effective supply chain management and examines the impact of outsourcing on these relationships. The student analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing and partnership, suggesting strategies for improvement, including better communication and collaboration with suppliers. The report also discusses the company's engagement with national charities and its impact on employee engagement and customer footfall. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of maintaining good relationships with suppliers, partners, and outsource providers and suggests that the company should adopt new techniques to improve its relationship with suppliers, such as collaborative efforts for planning, forecasting, and replenishments.

Running head: REFLECTION ON COMPANY’S RELATION WITH SUPPLIERS
REFLECTION ON COMPANY’S RELATION WITH SUPPLIERS
Name of student
Name of the University
Author Note

1REFLECTION ON COMPANY’S RELATION WITH SUPPLIER
Marks and Spencer, which was once most reputed retail company of UK is presently
facing many problems. I have noticed a few of the problems that are – the company’s poor
relationship with the suppliers, the company’s inability to meet the changing needs of the
customers, the company’s poor risk management abilities and the company’s inefficient
supply chain. According to me, relationship with the suppliers, partners and outsource
providers is vital for having an effective supply chain management. I have noticed that the
company’s present relationship with suppliers is not so good because they are selecting and
coordinating with only a few suppliers for meeting their supply needs. Maintaining proper
partnership has always been the aim of the company. I have seen many instances where the
company has been able to understand and fulfill their customers needs with the help of proper
partnership. Company’s relationship with outsource provider is hampering its relationship
with the supplier because the company is trusting the outsource providers more than the
traditional suppliers. The company has even decided to outsource half of its IT services to the
a consultancy form which shows their trust in the outsource providers.
I feel that the company needs to improve its relationship with suppliers as the
availability of the goods to the customers on time depends upon the company’s relationship it
the supplier. If a company has good relationship with suppliers, they can provide the
company with resources at lower cost and will deliver the resources to the company on time
such that the time required for converting the raw material into finished goods will be less
and the cost will be less. I feel that the company should give equal importance to its
relationship with both the suppliers and the outsource providers because presently the
company is giving more importance to the outsource providers and not to the suppliers.
Marks and Spencer is committed to maintaining good relationship with partners because they
know there are many advantages of doing the same. I feel that maintaining internal relation
with partners is important because whenever a company decides to enter into partnership with

2REFLECTION ON COMPANY’S RELATION WITH SUPPLIER
other countries the partners are the people who can give right information about the how can
the company properly work in that country. Internal relationship with suppliers is important
because then the company can ensure that they get all the necessary resources required by
them on time as and when demanded.
During my study, I found that understanding the relationship of the company with the
supplier is very difficult because the company has said that they are trying to improve their
relationship with the suppliers. On the other hand the company is trying to build good
relationship with the outsource providers related to production in that case the suppliers
which were previously associated with the company are finding it very difficult to trust the
suppliers. A recent instance that I have studied was that the company has entered into alliance
with the British suppliers but then they changed their decision to outsource those activities.
This is causing an improvement in the relationships of the company with the outsource
providers. The company’s relation with the national charities have turned out to be
advantageous for the company because the company is increasing its goodwill with such acts
of charity. The company is improving engagement of the employees because the employees
feel that they are being involved in some good cause. This step has increased the footfalls in
the company because the customers also want to become a part of something good and by
purchasing the goods of such a company that is engaged in doing charity makes them feel
good.
Marks and Spencer have decided to keep the supply chain as thin as possible because
the company has decided to reduce its cost such that the customers can get the goods at a low
cost. This is possible only when the company can reduce the cost that it spends on the
intermediaries or the supply chain so that is why the company is deciding to keep the supply
chain as thin as possible. This act however is affecting their relationship with the suppliers
they were already working with. However, the company is not seeing the long-term effects of

3REFLECTION ON COMPANY’S RELATION WITH SUPPLIER
poor relationship with suppliers. Outsourcing activities is a good technique to get the work
done quickly by the company and by doing this the top management can be focusing on some
other activities. I feel that the company should not outsource all its functions. If the company
outsources its important functions also like HRM functions and others then the quality of
work can be affected. Such as if the company decides to outsource its payroll function, the
company would lose control, there can be confidentiality issues that can be faced by the
employees if their information is used exploitatively and other quality issues can be there.
According to me some partnerships can be advantageous but there are many factors that
needs to be considered by the company before entering into partnership. The executives of
the company needs to carry out proper communication with the partners about different
issues such as – their country’s policies, they can get information about what kind of products
are preferred by people, how much demand can be there and others.
According to me, the company can lay emphasis on improving their relationship with
the suppliers both internally and externally by improving communication with them. The
company to improve their relationship as well as proper forecasting, planning and
replenishments can use various collaborative techniques. The company can conduct regular
meetings with their partners- franchisee partners and others to find ways to improve their
activities of supply chain in the franchisee company, to understand how the company is
performing in the franchisee countries, and discuss on other factors. I learnt that to maintain
relationship of the company with the partners, suppliers and outsource providers is important
for the company. The company should adopt new techniques to improve its relationship with
the suppliers such as they can arrive at some collaborative efforts for planning, forecasting
and replenishments, by increasing the number of suppliers they were previously dealing with.
Instead of outsourcing all their activities, the company can keep the control of few function
entirely to themselves.