Moss Bros: Strategic Analysis, Issues, and Competitive Strategy

This strategic report analyzes Moss Bros Group PLC, a UK-based retail clothing and hire brand with over 165 years of history. The report identifies three key strategic issues facing the company: integrating online activities with offline stores, building a strong community, and increasing the use of technology to scale operations. It includes a PESTLE analysis, Porter's Five Forces analysis, and a SWOT analysis to assess the company's macro and micro environments. The report also examines the company's resources, capabilities, and competitive advantages, focusing on its strong brand, customer satisfaction, and skilled workforce. Finally, the report assesses the extent to which Moss Bros' competitive strategy addresses its strategic issues and suggests improvements, such as streamlining the in-store experience and focusing on community building to enhance brand loyalty and customer engagement. The report concludes that by leveraging technology, adapting to current trends, and strengthening its supplier base, Moss Bros can overcome its challenges and maintain its market position.

Running Head: Corporate Strategy
Corporate Strategy
Mos Bross

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Executive Summary
Mos Bros is a well renowned Retail clothing and Hire brand which has been serving the
customers of UK for over 165 years. The clothing and tailoring brand which started its
journey by opening just one small store, at the very present boasts of over 129 stores
spread across the UK. The only potential danger to Mos Bros is related to the dominance
and prevalence of online stores, which pose a major threat to the business organization.
The company has been expediting its efforts in the digital space to provide a seamless
experience to the customers across all the channels. Additionally the company has been
advised to focus on building a strong community, to gain brand loyalists and improve
the promoter score of the organization. The company is looking forward to scale up its
product offering and provide a better in –store experience to its esteemed customers.
Thus, it calls for Mos Bros. to leverage the technology, keep up with the current trends
in clothing retail and hire industry and strengthening its supplier base.

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Table of Content
Brief Background............................................................................................................................................. 3
Strategic Issues................................................................................................................................................. 4
PESTLE Analysis.......................................................................................................................................... 4
Porter 5 Forces............................................................................................................................................. 5
SWOT Analysis.............................................................................................................................................. 7
Strength........................................................................................................................................................... 7
Weakness........................................................................................................................................................ 7
Opportunities................................................................................................................................................ 8
Threats............................................................................................................................................................. 8
Strategic Capabilities...................................................................................................................................... 9
Industry and its Critical Success Factors........................................................................................... 9
Critical Success Factors.......................................................................................................................... 10
Unique Resources and Capabilities................................................................................................... 10
Unique resources and capabilities linking to advantage..........................................................11
Evaluation and Improvements................................................................................................................ 11
Environmental........................................................................................................................................... 11
Stakeholders............................................................................................................................................... 11
Feasibility..................................................................................................................................................... 12
Possible improvement to strategy & feasibility...........................................................................12
Streamlined focus towards the In-store experience...................................................................12

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Community Building................................................................................................................................ 12
Conclusion........................................................................................................................................................ 13
References........................................................................................................................................................ 14

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Brief Background
The story of Moss Bros. Group PLC can be seen as inspirational as well as influential to
the budding entrepreneurs. An institution which grew from just one single stall at
Covent Garden in the year 1851, at the very present has over 129 stores around the
United Kingdom which facilitates quality tailoring solutions to men(Selby, 2017). The
company which was pivotal in providing the Officers Uniform during the WW1 & 2 has
been quick in adapting to the changing trends in fashion (Ross, 2017). Mos Bros is an
aspirational company and wants to become the first choice for Men’s tailoring. The
aspirations of the company are based on its three most important strategic goals,
developing and growing the brand, ability to achieve complete Omni channel capability
and to consistently provide an outstanding customer experience to all(Bos, 2018).
Over the last couple of years, Mos Bros. has consolidated its position and has
outsmarted any of the existing competition. The company has developed capabilities
and expanded into store estate, growth in online capabilities and the development and
repositioning of the Mos Bros. product offering (Matheson, 2015). The company stands
right next to the likes of luxury brands such as DKNY, French Connection, Canali, Zegna
and many others. Mos Bros. is extremely popular amongst the grooms, families and
friends (Shrimpton, 2014).
The purpose of the report here is to provide a strategic report to the CEO of the business
organization. The report will entail the 3 key strategic issues which are facing the
organization, understanding the resources and the capabilities of the organization along
with its USP. Along with this, a critical analysis of the organizations competitive strategy

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will be conduct and its impact on managing the strategic issues of the organization. A
set of recommendation will follow in the end to alleviate the strategic issues at hand.
Strategic Issues
Despite the fact that Mos Bros. is showing solidarity in its growth, there are certain
strategic issues which the company has to focus upon:
 Integration of Online activities into offline store.
 Community Building
 Increased use of technology to scale up its operations.
The section will now analyse, how these issues are of strategic importance to the
organization and needs to be assessed at the earliest to ensure sustainability in the
business model.
PESTLE Analysis
(Source: Rastogi & Trivedi, 2016)
PESTLE analysis is a strategic tool used for analysing the macro environmental factors
which might have an impact over the business organization. The strategic tool is used to
assess the impact of Political, economic, socio-cultural, technological, legal and
environmental factors over the business organization.

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Force Impact on the Organization
Political UK has a fairly stable political climate and
the contribution of the retail economy is of
pivotal importance. The government does
not have tighter regulation and it lets the
market forces decide the price of its
product and services
Economical In here, Mos Bros. has to raise capital
locally to boast its organizational
capabilities. Also, Brexit has created
tremors in the British economy. The falling
value of Pound is an indication that the
exports will fetch the company lesser
money. This is a strategic issue, as the
company will have to create a strategy to
overturn this impact.
Socio-Cultural The inclination of the people is getting
inched slowly and steadily to designer
wear clothes. Customers are opting for
high end tailoring shops which better suit
their high end requirements (Sun et. al.,
2014).
Technological This is another factor which has a major
impact over Mos Bros. For instance the
company has to up its capabilities in the
digital spectrum to leverage the
technology. Also the same has to be
inculcated into its value chain system
(Niemann, Kotze & Mannya, 2018).
Legal Anti-trust law, consume protection, e-
commerce laws, employment law are some
of the factors which have to be considered
by the Mos Bros. However, the company
has yet not breached any of the legal
components in UK as of now.
Environmental Although the group does not operate in an
industry which is a significant contributor
towards pollution. However, at the same
time the company is committed to manage
and improve the way its activities are
conducted to curtail the degradation of the
environment (Thompson & McLamey,
2017).
(Source: Nixon, 2016)
Thus, the PESTLE analysis points towards two strategic issues which are:

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 Impact of Brexit and the falling value of Pound.
 Need for better integration to provide the best in store and web experience to
the customers.
Porter 5 Forces
Porter 5 forces are a popular strategic framework which helps in determining the
attractiveness and the profitability of the industry on the basis of study of the market
forces. The five tool framework is used by the organization to assess the impact of the
strong and weak forces on the business organization.
(Source: Fernie, Fernie & Moore, 2015)
Porter 5 Forces Impact
Threat of New Entrant The threat in retail segment brings
innovation and pushes Mos Bros to reduce
its cost and create new value proposition.
Bargaining Power of Suppliers Mos Bros is dependent on plethora of
suppliers for its raw material. Too many
suppliers in the industry ecosystem reduce
the bargaining power of Mos Bros.
(Razalan et. al., 2017).
Bargaining Power of Buyers Buyers in the retail segment are very
demanding. This pushes Mos Bros to
consistently innovate and come up with
the latest trends and design in its tailoring,

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signifying higher bargaining power of the
buyers (Mandhachitara & Shannon, 2016).
Threats of Substitute Products The threat of substitute products can be
seen as moderate, due to the reason that
Mos Bros has established its name in the
market. Also, the customers of the
company are big time brand loyalists, thus
reducing the impact (Piercy, 2016).
Competitive Rivalry There is intense competition in the retail
line. Also the company is pitching against
some high end luxury brand on the likes of
DKNY, French connection and other. This
significantly reduces the profitability of
the business organization (Christopher,
2016).
Thus the critical analysis of the Porter 5 forces model reflects that the organization has
to sustain its position of competitive advantage to maintain its profitability. In order to
do so, the firm has to bring a lot of differentiation and follow the current trends in the
market.
SWOT Analysis
SWOT analysis is a micro-environmental analysis which helps in identifying the
strength and weakness which are internal to the organization. It also gives an indication
of the opportunity and threat which are external to the organization.
Strength
 Extremely high level of customer satisfaction.
 Very strong dealer community.
 Extremely strong cash flows.
 Successful record in creation of new product and innovative designing.
 Successful record into integration of various firms in Mos Bros Plc.
 Highly skilled workforce with plenty of experience in the industry.
 The company uses automation to integrate its various activities and expedite its
business operations.
 Over 165 years of enriched experience in the industry.
 Fairly strong brand portfolio which also paves the way for the company to
diversify its business operations (Roberts, 2014).

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Weakness
 There is an inherent need for the organization to invest heavily in technology in
order to invest in other locations and integrate the process across the board.
 The company has not been in a position to manage the challenge posed by
smaller players. Due to which the company has lost some of the market share in
the niche categories.
 The company is not able to manage its finances properly, and its financial
statement is an indication that it can utilize and spend more cash than it is doing
at the present.
 The company has consistently failed in its demand forecasting, this leads to
lacunae in its sales strategy.
 The product range of Mos Bros. is limited, which implies that there is a good
chance that customers might move to other players in the industry (Roberts,
2014).
Opportunities
 Lower Interest rate ensures lower rate of credit to the customers of Mos Bros.
 There has been an increase in consumer spending over the last decade, which is
good opportunity for the company.
 New environmental polices ensures a level playing field for all the players in the
industry.
 New markets are being opened up showing opportunity for the organization.
 Reducing cost of transportation bring down the cost of shipping, which in turn
ensures cheaper products.
 Growth in technology and Usage of CRM can help Mos Bros. build a large and
loyal audience base of its customers.
 The company has invested huge sum of money in its online platform, this will
definitely be a money spinner for the organization in the coming times
(Pinkhasov & Nair, 2014).

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Threats
 Mos Bros. business model is a physical infrastructure driven supply chain model
which has a major threat from the consumer spending on the online channels.
 There can be limited threat after the Paris climate agreement (2016) on some of
the existing product categories.
 Demand of the products is seasonal, which impacts the profitability of the
organization.
 The cost of raw material is on a high spree, thus affecting the profitability of the
business organization.
 The new trend in the economy is pointing towards isolationism; this might
impact the international sales of Mos Bros.
 Imitation of the original product and counterfeiting are some of the major
threats to Mos Bros (Roberts, 2014).
Thus, using all the strategic tools, some of the identified issues at the hands of Mos Bros.
are:
 Usage of technology in its business process and operations to expedite the
process and maintain consistency across the board.
 Usage and growth of online platform into an online channel of sales.
 Focus should be on building a strong loyal customer base, preferably a storing
community (Atkinson, O’hara & Sturgeon, 2014).
Strategic Capabilities
The section here will focus about the industry and its critical success factors, unique
resources and unique capabilities linking to its advantage.
Industry and its Critical Success Factors
Mos Bros operates in the Clothing retail and hire industry and makes most of its
revenue via retail and online channel, however there is most definitely a requirement
for the company to up its online sales. The clothing apparel and footwear market in the
UK has been showing solid growth over the last 5-6 years. It is expected that by end of

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the year 2018, the industry will be inching towards the mark of GBP 62 Billion. The
sales are dominated by women, whereas men account for only half of the purchase
made by the women (Castelli & Sianesi, 2015).
The industry in itself has a lot of big players such as Primark, Next, New Look, Mos Bros
and other online shops such as the ASOS. It has been estimated that majority of the sales
will be dominated by the online stores and the retail stores will take a backseat. But this
does not necessarily mean that the UK customers are not inclined towards physical
stores, and almost 66.3% of the population shops offline. The industry though can be
seen struggling with reducing margins due to the growth in online stores. The need of
the hour is to provide a seamless integration between the offline and the online
channels. The focus should rely on providing the in-store experience to the clients,
exclusive deals and build loyalty with them (Chan, Ngai & Moon, 2017).
Critical Success Factors
Critical success factors are extremely important while identifying the element needed
for the success of the industry, project or an organization. The Critical success factors
can also be visualized as the factors which are must and should for the success of the
business organization. Based on the understanding of the industry and secondary study,
some of the CSF identified is:
 Unique brand positioning and the products have to be exclusive to the extent
that they are available only at the store or company’s online channel (Macchion
et. al., 2015).
 For many customers the in store shopping experience counts the most, thus it is
one of the most important CSF for the industry.
 Perfect demands and sales forecasting with the objective of inventory control.
 Build a personal touch with its customers.
 Focus on the technology and the supply chain.
 Sustainability and innovation.
 Seamless experience on offline and online channels.