Principles of Marketing: Marks & Spencer Business Report, 2019

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Marks & Spencer's marketing strategies, focusing on two critical success factors: responding to changing trends and customer needs, and reducing prices. The report begins with an introduction to M&S, followed by an examination of its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). It then delves into market segmentation, the marketing mix (7Ps), and provides detailed recommendations for improvement. The recommendations include expanding the product portfolio to include traditional clothing for the Asian market and adopting competitive pricing strategies. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of adapting the marketing mix to address the identified critical success factors and achieve business objectives. The report highlights the need for M&S to adapt to changing market demands, particularly in the Asian market, and to adjust its pricing strategies to remain competitive.

PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING 1
Understanding the Principles of Marketing
Component B
Business Report
10 April 2017

PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING 2
Executive Summary
The intent of this report is to frame critical success factors for Marks & Spencer and
recommending marketing strategies to attain these factors. Marks & Spencer is one of the
famous brands of the United Kingdom, which is involved in offering home products,
clothing, and food products with a huge number of stores across the world. The report has
framed two critical success factors for the company i.e. responding to changing trends and
customer needs and reducing prices. From the analysis, it has been analyzed that company is
incapable to cover the Asian market due to increasing traditional and ethnic clothing demand.
Therefore, it is recommended that the company must involve in offering traditional wear in
the Asian market. In addition, the company is changing high prices due to its premium
quality clothes, however, in order to survive and give strong competition in the market, it
must reduce its prices.

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary...................................................................................................................2
Introduction of Marks and Spencer........................................................................................4
1 Critical Success Factors......................................................................................................5
Strength..............................................................................................................................5
Weaknesses........................................................................................................................5
Opportunities......................................................................................................................5
Threats................................................................................................................................5
Target Market.........................................................................................................................5
Market Segmentation.............................................................................................................6
2 Critical Success Factors......................................................................................................6
Strength..............................................................................................................................6
Weaknesses........................................................................................................................6
Opportunities......................................................................................................................6
Threats................................................................................................................................6
Target Market.........................................................................................................................7
Market Segmentation.............................................................................................................7
Marketing Mix.......................................................................................................................7
Product...............................................................................................................................7
Price....................................................................................................................................7
Place...................................................................................................................................7
Promotion...........................................................................................................................8
People.................................................................................................................................8
Physical Evidence..............................................................................................................8
Process................................................................................................................................8
Recommendations......................................................................................................................8
1 CSF......................................................................................................................................8
Product...............................................................................................................................8
Promotion...........................................................................................................................8
Place...................................................................................................................................9
Physical Evidence..............................................................................................................9
2 CSF......................................................................................................................................9

PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING 4
Price....................................................................................................................................9
People.................................................................................................................................9
Process................................................................................................................................9
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................11

PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING 5
Introduction of Marks and Spencer
Marks & Spencer is one of the well-known brands of United Kingdom with headquarter in
London. The company majorly deals in luxury food products, clothing, and home products.
The company was introduced by Thomas Spencer and Michael Marks in 1884. Marks &
Spencer has its operations across the world and deals with intense competitors from the major
rivals like Zara, United Colors of Benetton, Uniqlo, Tommy Hilfiger, H&M, and Gap (Marks
& Spencer, 2019).
Perceptual Mapping
Source [(Pin Interest, 2019)]
Marks & Spencer has segmented its market based on behavioral, psychographic, and
geographic segments. The key geographic segment of the company is the United Kingdom
but it also operates its business in 41 international territories with 337 stores (Marks &
Spencer, 2018b). On the basis of demographical segmentation, the company has divided its

PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING 6
market-based on gender and social class. In addition, on the basis of behavioral segmentation
company divide the market based on customer behavior, lifestyle, and living standard.
1 Critical Success Factors
Responding to changing trends and customer needs – It has been observed that being
operating business across the world Marks & Spencer is only focusing on offering western
and formal wears to its customers. The demand for traditional clothes and accessories is
increasing across the world such as Asian market, which company is not being able to satisfy
(Bhasin, 2018). Therefore, must now focus on changing trends and demand of the customers.
Strength
Marks & Spenser can get involved in creating traditional clothes for its customers in the
market like Asia as it has sufficient required resources such as physical stores, and improving
financial status (Rueters, 2019). Besides this, the company has its own brand which is
popular among people which can attract customers to purchase traditional clothes.
Weaknesses
One of the weaknesses of Marks & Spencer is the lack of expertise in offering traditional
clothes in the market.
Opportunities
The Asian market is one of the developing and product markets that offer a number of
opportunities to the business who are thinking to invest in the countries (Bhasin, 2018).
Threats
The key threat for Marks & Spencer to meet the changing trend and demand in the market is
the presence of a number of competitors and private brands operating in the Asian market
such as Zara (Craft, 2019).

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Target Market
In order to meet the changing demand and trends of the market, the company can target
adults, kids, teenagers, and old age people (Marks & Spencer, 2018c).
Market Segmentation
Geographic – Company can meet the changing demand and trends in the Asian market. The
Asian market is the segment that asks for more traditional wears and the company is
presently only offering western wear in this segment (Marks & Spencer, 2018c).
Demographic– Company can divide the market based on age, gender, and income.
Psychographic- Company can divide the market based on lifestyle, customer buying
behavior, and living standard.
2 Critical Success Factors
Reducing Prices – Marks & Spencer offer its products at high prices, which results in
reducing its sales because all customer cannot afford to buy it (Butler, 2018).
Strength
Marks & Spence is incorporated with innovative strategies and skilled workforce that support
organization in developing products with justifiable use of resources (Bhasin, 2018).
Weaknesses
Over the years, the company has lost its position in the market besides having a strong
reputation and latent brand credentials.
Opportunities
The company can expand its services in developing nations. By reducing prices company can
increase customer share and loyalty.

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Threats
The major threat for the company is its decreasing financial and market performance in the
global market due to an increasing market share of global competitors (Marks & Spencer,
2018a).
Target Market
By reducing the prices of the products, the company can target lower middle-class segment
and middle-class segment.
Market Segmentation
Demographic – Based on income variance, Company can divide its market
Marketing Mix
Product
Marks & Spencer is said to be one of the well-known brands in the retail industry. The
portfolio of the company is offering different types of products like blazers, jeans, skirts, etc.
for kids, women, and men (Marks & Spencer, 2018d).
Three levels of Marks & Spencer products
Core Product – Different designs and trendy western wears
Actual Product – Colour, style, quality
Augmented Product – Delivery, Customer care
Price
Marks & Spencer offer their products and services at high prices. The company has its own
private brand in the clothing category for kids, men, and women. In general, these in house
brands are priced higher due to their high quality (Butler, 2018).

PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING 9
Place
Marks & Spencer is one of the international businesses which have established around 1000
stores operating in 50 nations (MBA Skool, 2019).
Promotion
M&S majorly focus on offering a common message through the entire communication
medium. It makes use of TV ads, social media, and print media.
People
M&S has employed around 83000 employees. It gives major attention to all the employees,
by complying with the policy of competitive payment in order to retain employees (Marks &
Spencer, 2018e).
Physical Evidence
M&S has around 1000 stores in 50 nations across the world.
Process
Stores of the Marks & Spencer are placed in different malls and suburban areas. These stores
are well-organized in comparison to other stores like lifestyle and pantaloons, etc.
Recommendations
1 CSF
Product
Considering the Critical success factor of changing demand and trend in the market, it is
recommended that company needs to get involved in offering traditional and ethnic clothing
to the customers in order to meet the increasing demand of these products in the Asian and
other markets.

PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING 10
Promotion
The company can promote its ethnic and traditional clothing with the help of different
television advertisement, print advertisement, sponsorship, and celebrity endorsement.
Place
M&S is not able to meet the demand of the Asian market due to the absence of traditional and
ethnic clothing in its product portfolio and giving major priority to the western wears.
Therefore, the company is not able to get success in this market. It is recommended that the
company need to reintroduce itself in the Asian market with traditional and ethnic clothing
into the portfolio.
Physical Evidence
The company can effectively incorporate traditional and ethnic clothing into its available
stores in the Asian market (Arcadis, 2019).
2 CSF
Price
From the above analysis, it has been analyzed that Marks & Spencer is involved in offering
premium quality products at high prices which affects its sales as well as customer share. In
order to increase its customer share and sales, the company needs to reduce its prices and
have to adopt a competitive pricing strategy to survive in the market.
People
Marks & Spencer needs to hire a talented and experienced workforce that is competent
enough to frame strategies and provide ideas that could support the company in reducing its
prices.

PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING 11
Process
The company must upgrade its online website and implement an advanced ERP system that
could support in reducing the prices of the company.
Conclusion
The above report is comprised of a brief analysis of the Marks & Spencer and its critical
success factors. The two main critical success factors for the company are responding to
changing trends and customer needs and reducing prices. From the above analysis, it could be
concluded that in order to attain both the critical success factors company needs to make
changes in its market mix such as including traditional clothing into the product portfolio and
adopting competitive pricing strategies by reducing the prices of its products.

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References
Arcadis (2019) Marks and Spencer store [online]. Available from
https://www.arcadis.com/en/united-kingdom/what-we-do/our-projects/asia/asia-pacific-
wide/marks-and-spencer-store/ [accessed 10 April 2019]
Bhasin, H. (2018) SWOT analysis of Marks & Spencer [online]. Available from
https://www.marketing91.com/swot-analysis-of-marks-spencer/ [accessed 10 April 2019]
Butler, S. (2018) Seven reasons why Marks & Spencer is in trouble [online]. Available from
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/may/23/seven-reasons-why-marks-spencer-is-
in-trouble [accessed 10 April 2019]
Craft (2019) Marks & Spencer competitors [online]. Available from https://craft.co/marks-
spencer/competitors [accessed 10 April 2019]
Marks & Spencer (2018a) Transformation Underway [online]. Available from
https://corporate.marksandspencer.com/annual-report-2018/mands_annualreport_2018.pdf
[accessed 10 April 2019]
Marks & Spencer (2018b) About M&S [online]. Available from
https://global.marksandspencer.com/about-ms/ [accessed 10 April 2019]
Marks & Spencer (2018c) M&S Value Shines Through For Customers [online]. Available
from https://corporate.marksandspencer.com/media/press-releases/2018/m-and-s-value-
shines-through-for-customers [accessed 10 April 2019]
Marks & Spencer (2018d) Brands [online]. Available from
https://www.marksandspencer.com/l/men/brands [accessed 10 April 2019]