Comparative Analysis of Retail Businesses: Tesco, M&S, John Lewis, H&M

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of four major retail businesses: Tesco, Marks and Spencer (M&S), John Lewis, and H&M. It begins with an overview of Tesco, detailing its global presence, history, and employee count. The report then presents a SWOT analysis of Tesco, examining its strengths (e.g., global presence, customer service), weaknesses (e.g., decreasing profits), opportunities (e.g., business expansion), and threats (e.g., competition). The marketing mix of Tesco is then discussed, including its product range, pricing strategy, distribution channels, and promotional activities. The report continues with a similar analysis of Marks and Spencer, including a SWOT analysis and a review of its marketing mix. The report also includes an analysis of John Lewis and H&M, covering their SWOT analysis and marketing mix. The report highlights the key strategies, challenges, and competitive positioning of each company, providing a valuable insight into the retail market.

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Academic Skills

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Contents
MAIN BODY 1................................................................................................................................1
SWOT analysis of Tesco........................................................................................................1
Marketing mix of Tesco.........................................................................................................2
MAIN BODY 2................................................................................................................................3
SWOT analysis of Marks and Spencer...................................................................................3
Marketing mix of Marks and Spencer ...................................................................................4
MAIN BODY 3................................................................................................................................6
SWOT analysis of John Lewis...............................................................................................6
Marketing mix of John Lewis.................................................................................................8
MAIN BODY 4..............................................................................................................................10
Swot analysis of H&M.........................................................................................................10
Marketing mix of H&M.......................................................................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

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MAIN BODY 1
Tesco is one of the largest multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer. Its
headquarter is in Welwyn Garden city, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom. Currently
organisation is delivering its services all around the world (Adnyana and Darma, 2015). It was
founded in year 1909 by Jack Cohen and it has more than 7800 shops world-wide. All the
operations are executed with the help of 460000 employees.
SWOT analysis of Tesco
SWOT helps managers to analyse that organisation is able to deal with all the problems
that can affect its profitability. It guides them to formulate effective decisions that help to
execute business in appropriate manner. All the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
for Tesco are as follows:
Strengths:
 Tesco has various stores all around the world which helps customers to reach the stores
on time and get the items that they are willing to buy.
 Organisation has won various awards for its good customers service and good shopping
experience of them (Ahmed and Rahman, 2015).
 Tesco offer online services to the clients so that they can order food from their home and
get the products delivered at their door step. It helps to retain the clients for long period in
future.
 Product portfolio of Tesco is very strong which helps it to deal with other competitors
such as Sainsbury’s, WaitRose Limited etc. in the market.
 Number of stores of Tesco is continuous increasing which helps clients to reach there
easily and buy the products that they are willing to buy. Now it is expanding its business
in more geographic locations.
Weaknesses:
 Operating profits of Tesco is continuously decreasing due to worst performance in
the market.
 It has been analysed that it has poor performance in specific markets due to
insufficient market research of the area where business is operated.
 Low cost strategy of Tesco is leading it towards decreased profitability.
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Opportunities:
 Tesco is planning to expand its business in more locations where its shops are not yet
opened in order to be easily accessible for clients.
 A new discount store named Jack is being opened by Tesco which is discounted store so
that clients can be retained for a long period.
 It is planning to enhance its online presence with the help of opening more online shops
to enhance shopping business (Al-Azzam, 2016).
Threats:
 There are end number of competitors available in the market which are using new and
innovative techniques to expand the business.
 Food prices are increasing all around the world which can affect customer interest in
Tesco.
 Governmental regulations are changed by legal authorities with time and it is very
important for Tesco to comply with but it will be difficult to make changes in policies
continuously and it can affect organisational structure of Tesco.
Marketing mix of Tesco
There are four different types elements such as product, price, place and promotion of
marketing mix that are required to be focused by Tesco in order to execute business in
appropriate manner. It is vital to form strategic decisions so that all the challenges that may take
place in future can be dealt effectively. All the four components for Tesco are as follows:
Product: Tesco is offering wide rage of products to its clients which includes electronic,
clothing, food and financial services. It is continuously expanding the product range to fulfil
requirements of customers and retain them for a long period (Baker and Saren, eds., 2016). In
order to gain trust of consumers Tesco conduct market research on timely basis so that their
needs and preferences can be analysed and then appropriate products can be offered to them.
Price: Tesco is uses cost leadership pricing strategy to set low prices for its products
without affecting the quality of different items that are offered by the company. It helps the
organisation to attract all type of customers whether they are from upper, middle or lower class.
It also helps to be to cost leader of the market and sustain in the market.
Place: Tesco is operating its business in almost 11 countries with the help of more than
7800 stores. Main objective of the company is to be easily accessible for the clients and be their
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first choice for shopping. It is serving its services all around the world and also planning to
expand in more locations so that larger market share can be captured by it. Various small stores
are also being opened by Tesco for easily accessible for its clients and make them comfortable
for shopping. Tesco is also working on its online website so that it can attract large number of
customers towards it. Online ordering and delivering services are offered so that clients can get
the ordered items get delivered at their door step (Baker, 2016).
Two main types of channels are used by Tesco for the purpose of executing its business
operations these are online sites known as Superstores, Extra, Compact, Metro, Homeplus and
offline stores called Tesco Direct. Its different stores help clients to get the products that they are
willing to buy and fulfil their requirements. Its online stores are also generating higher revenues
for it and helping clients to get all the products easily delivered to them. Currently it has started
to make investment in its new projects in which it will open new stores in more locations and
enhance visibility of its online website for the purpose of attracting large number of clients.
Promotion: Different types of promotional strategies are used by Tesco for the purpose
of retaining existing clients and attracting prospects so that higher profits can revenues can be
generated (Bowie and et. al., 2016). Commercial advertisements that are used to promote
business are concerned to promote its low price of all its items so that clients get aware of its
pricing policy. Clubcard services are also used by Tesco to provide timely discount to its
customers. Demand and need patterns are being studied by the organisation and then managers
decide to form effective strategies for the purpose of business execution.
MAIN BODY 2
Marks and Spencer is a British Multinational retailer of different types of services such as
clothing, home products and luxury food items. Its headquarter is in London, United Kingdom. It
was founded by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in year 1884. The business is operated by
Marks and Spencer with the help of more than 80000 employees all around the world.
SWOT analysis of Marks and Spencer
It is very important for managers of Marks and Spencer to analyse all the strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats so that effective decisions for the betterment of the
organisation can be formulated (Gummesson, 2017). All of them of Marks and Spencer are as
follows:
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Strengths:
 Marks and Spencer have a wide range of products that are based upon customers
preferences. It helps to meet their expectations and enhance profitability.
 The food products that are offered by Marks and Spencer are directly bought from
farmers in order to assure fresh quality of all of them (Dagevos, 2016).
 It has large number of stores and outlets all around the world so that it can be easily
accessible for the clients.
 Marks and Spencer is highly involved in corporate social responsibility which helps it to
establish good market image.
Weaknesses:
 Financial performance of Marks and Spencer is very poor due to improper management
of monetary resources.
 Marks and Spencer is too much dependent upon UK market rather than other outlets all
around the world.
Opportunities:
 Marks and Spencer is planning to reshape the clothing segment in order to enhance
satisfaction level of clients (H. J., 2017).
 It has planned to expand business in more locations and offer new products to customers
in order to capture larger market share.
Threats:
 Marks and Spencer is having high competition in market which can affect its market
share and number of customers.
 Trends in clothing get changes with time so it is very important for Marks and Spencer to
conduct market research on continuous basis in order to meet requirements of clients.
Marketing mix of Marks and Spencer
For Marks and Spencer, it is very important to analyse all the elements of Marketing mix so
that effective strategies can be formulated by managers for organisation and enhance
profitability. An analysis of marketing mix elements such as product, price, place and
promotions is as follows:
Product: Marks and Spencer have a wide range of products and all of the are managed
by it appropriately. It is one of the largest and popular brand of retail sector which is mainly
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based in United Kingdom. It offers different types of clothing items for men and women, food
items, foot wears, lifestyle products etc. All the vegetables and fruits that are sold by it are
directly purchased from farmers to make sure that good quality products get delivers to clients. It
helps to be the market leaders and satisfy needs of customers (Harrington, Ottenbacher and
Fauser, 2017). All the outlets of Marks and Spencer are in to different sections such as men,
women, kids clothing, home, furniture, wine and dine, beauty and flowers. Main objective of the
company is to provide best quality products to all the clients so that higher profits can be
generated and their requirements can be fulfilled.
All the clothes that are sold in different stores of enterprise are made according to latest
market trends. For this purpose, timely market research is conducted to gather information
regarding latest fashion changes. It helps to attract large number of clients and retain them for a
long period in future. There are end umber of brand loyal customers that are acquired by Marks
and Spencer with the help of delivering good quality products to them. Nor managers of
organisation are planning to launch its clothes in new markets for the purpose of business
expansion. It will help to increase profits and revenues which can be used to execute business
operations in future. All the products that are sold by this entity are made according to
customer’s requirements and managers make sure that they have good quality because they do
not prefer to compromise with quality (Išoraitė, 2016). It is done by them because clients come
to Marks and Spencer for its good quality.
Price: Competitive product pricing strategy is used by Marks and Spencer to deal with
competition available in the market. Mainly the price which is set by the managers for its
products is very high because it targets the upper-class customers. Main competition which is
faced by this organisation is from online retailers which are offering products on low price.
Sometimes dynamic pricing strategy is also used by it and mainly it is used in seasonal time in
which higher discount is offered by the organisation on its products.
Place: Marks and Spencer is an international brand of clothing, furniture, food, foot wean
etc. types of items and managers make sure that it should be easily available for its customers so
that they can get the products that they are willing to buy. It is also offering items on online
media so that it can reach to maximum number of clients. Currently it is planning to operate
more stores all around the world. Main objective behind this step is to be easily accessible for the
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customers who are willing to buy products of Marks and Spencer. It will help the organisation to
attain long sustainability in the market (Jaminyasa, Pulawan and Amerta, 2017).
Promotion: Various types of attractive promotional strategies are used by Marks and
Spencer in order to aware clients regarding its products. It is selected by the managers carefully
so that all the marketing related objectives can be achieved on time. Currently it is using various
modes of promotions such as TV commercials, print media, social media campaigns and its own
website. Min objective behind all the promotional activities is to enhance brand loyalty of
customers and retain them for long period in future. Digital media is used to aware clients
regarding proposed projects that are going to be launched in market very soon. It helps to build
interest of them in the new products and increase sales when they are going to be introduced in
market.
MAIN BODY 3
Overview of John Lewis
John Lewis is a UK based high end departmental stores it is owned by a group known as
John Lewis partnership founded in 1929 by John Lewis. In 1864 it opened its first store in
Oxford Street, London, and today now it owns 51 stores across England, Wales and Scotland. It
opened its first John Lewis concession in October 2016 in Dublin (Karjaluoto, Mustonen and
Ulkuniemi, 2015). They expand their business in various other countries. In the year 2008
January the store opened in Oxford Street was awarded with a Royal Warrant by Queen
Elizabeth II as a supplier of household and haberdashery goods.
SWOT analysis of John Lewis
SWOT analysis
SWOT analysis is a analysis of companies both internal as well as external factors. Internal
factors include Strength and Weakness of a company whereas external factors include Threats
and opportunities. This is analysis is used by companies to find out their weakness and convert
those weakness into their strengths and while analysis of its external factors it is used to make an
estimate of foreseeable threats and try to convert those threats in to their opportunities or remove
those threats. SWOT analysis of John Lewis shows that their main strength is their pricing
strategy which they use for their products and services. Following is SWOT analysis of John
Lewis:
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Strengths
 The main strengths of John Lewis is that they have the most up market retail outlets
across United Kingdom.
 It offers various ranges of fashion brands including their own brands at a reasonable
price with a wide variety.
 It has over 35000 employees working under them (Kubacki and er. al., 2015).
 To determine the best price for its products company has hired a special team for
analysis of prices of similar products including similar services offered by its
competitors. After this analysis they set their prices lower than its competitors to beat
the competition.
Weakness
 The range of items offered by a company is limited as compared to supermarkets
resulting in the limit of options available with its customers.
 Their main weakness is their prices which are higher than supermarkets and grocery
stores which may result in the limited target group.
 They provide its products in their high end retail outlets which limit the reach of
customer and limit it to only the target customers.
Opportunities
 Opportunity which is available to grow its market share is the increasing in the
number of young professionals who are living away from home and are very brand
conscious can result in the increase in their target customer (Lovelock and Patterson,
2015).
 Increase in the purchasing power of consumers which results in the improved
lifestyle of consumers can also benefit it to increase its target group.
 They also have an opportunity to increase its store flagships resulting in the
expansion of its business.
Threats
 The main threat which is concerned with its stores is the robbery attempt which leads
to increase in the expenses related to security of its property loss and the safety of
employees working in the night shift.
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 Difficulties in the competition laws and the lack of resources in increase its
development on a large scale which leads to merger of several convenience stores.
 Tough and very intense competition from various other supermarkets, corner stores,
grocery stores and the host of many different convenience stores.
Marketing mix of John Lewis
Marketing Mix
Marketing Mix is a set of techniques which are used by companies to promote and its
products in market (Melis and et. al., 2015). This technique include from the developing stage of
a product to deciding its prices to sell its goods in market at a price which can be affordable by
every consumer. It also includes in setting up of a places where its products can be sold and at
last to decide its promotional strategies so that it can be placed in the minds of consumers. The
process of marketing mix is classified into four different categories known as 4Ps – Product,
Price, Place and Promotion.
Marketing mix of company John Lewis analyses its brand and covers all the 4 Ps (Product,
Price, Place and Promotion) of market and explains their strategies. Following is the analysis of
John Lewis marketing mix strategies covering 4 Ps:
Product: This P of marketing mix focuses on the product line of a company in which a
company is dealing in. The product which is provided by a company should deliver a minimum
level of performance every time a product is used. John Lewis is a leading high end retailer
stores which provides a huge range of services from nursery advice appliance and technical
support to personal styling. Its retails stores provide several other services including it as a part
of their marketing mix strategy in order to gain competitive advantage over its competitors. It
provide various products belonging in various sectors such as home and design, gifts and
celebrations, electrical and technology, baby and child and beauty and fashion products. The
variety of product range is offered by this store which also includes all household high end
products. In home furnishing segment it provides various products which include their own
brand duvets, furnishing fabrics and pillows are manufactured in the manufacturing unit
Lancashire mill located in Herbert Parkinson. This mill also provides various other services such
as on site weaving operating which creates a exclusive fabric design as per the need of its
customers, they also provide its Made to Measure seven day curtains, voile services and roller
blinds.
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Place: This P of marketing mix focuses on the place in which the company is trying to
establish its market or already selling its product. It is important for every industry to establish its
products in the minds of a customer and making it easy for them to recognise company’s brand.
Place of selling products and services plays an important role in establishing companies brand as
it concerns on catching the eye of a consumer and making it easy for them to buy (O'Cass and
Heirati, 2015). It aims on the good distribution of product. Retailers incur additional expenses on
getting a right location for their stores. In order to decide its place of business John Lewis uses a
multi channel strategy and various other distribution channels to provide goods and services to
its customers. In order to make their goods available company is also going into E commerce
industry including various social media channels such as Facebook, YouTube and twitter. To add
convenience for its customers they also launched a mobile application to support its E commerce
retail. Currently they own more than fifty stores across England including a store placed at
Heathrow Airport.
Promotion: This P of marketing mix focuses on the activities which are used by a company
to make their products and services known to the customers. It includes various technique of
marketing their products it uses both traditional and digital marketing strategies of spreading
awareness of the product and services offered by a company. In order to promote their products
and services John Lewis uses innovative promotional strategies and creatively uses the occasions
of festivals in order to develop its special advertisements during end seasons.
Price: This is a P which refers to value which is put for a product. It depends on cost of
production which is incurred by a company in order to provide product and services to
customers. It is also used as a demarcation in order to differentiate and enhance image of its
product. John Lewis believes that fair pricing is always been at the heart of business. They adopt
various competitive pricing strategies to keep good quality and value in minds of customer for its
product. The policies which are opted by their mangers which ensures to capture entire market
along with its competitive pricing amongst its competitors (Serrat, O., 2017). John Lewis has
appointed its price monitoring team which are proactively keeping a check on its prices of their
branded products of competitors which includes online. They regularly analyse their competitors
and if they finds that any of their competitor is providing a same quality of product with same
included services at a lower at price, they immediately change their prices on their online as well
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as offline stores for analysis they have a separate team which help them to take a competitive
edge over its competitors..
MAIN BODY 4
H&M stands for Hennes & Mauritz, it is the Swedish multinational clothing brand which
is working worldwide. It is the second largest global clothing company. It is also know as fast
fashion clothing. Company was founded in 1947 by Erling Persson. They deal in clothe for men,
women, teenagers and children (Stead and Hastings, 2018). Organisation is dealing in more than
62 countries with almost 4500 outlets. H&M will further help in understanding the concept of
marketing mix and SWOT analysis.
Swot analysis of H&M
It is a tool which organisation uses for understanding its internal strength and
weaknesses of the company and external opportunities and threats. It helps them to improve and
enhance their strength and weaknesses.
 STRENGTH: H&M is a very famous and big organisation with a strong brand image, it
has lot of strength which make it different from other brands. Organisation has a wide
range of products dealing in the market is also act as one of its strength. This is because
it help them in targeting more customers with different requirements. In return it
increases the sales of the H&M as well its profitability. Other than this its global
presence also make it strong as compare to its competitors
 WEAKNESS: This company is very large and is working in many countries which
make it difficult for them to deal everywhere by their own. For solving this problem
they are very much dependent on third party suppliers and they outsource their products.
This is the weakness of the company because it lowers the control of organisation on
production. In return company has to face delay in order commitments as well as bad
customers experience. All of this affect the profitability of the company and its brand
image.
 OPPORTUNITY: H&M has a great opportunity to expand itself by increasing its
outlet across the world. Organisation opened 400 more outlets in many countries which
improves their different line of production and sales. Other than this H&M has more
opportunities like E-commerce which is increasing rapidly in the entire world. They can
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