MKT 6801 Report: Strategic Marketing Planning for Marks and Spencer

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Marks and Spencer's (M&S) strategic marketing planning. It begins by defining corporate and business strategies, explaining their significance in achieving organizational goals. The report then delves into the history of M&S, tracing its evolution as a retailer. A core component of the report involves a critical assessment of M&S's corporate and business objectives, applying the SMART criteria for evaluation. The report examines how M&S allocates resources, designs its organizational structure, manages its portfolio, and makes strategic trade-offs. It also explores M&S's business strategies, including differentiation, cost leadership, and focus. The report uses relevant marketing theory to illustrate its points, providing a thorough understanding of M&S's strategic approach to the market. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and emphasizes the importance of strategic planning for business success.

Strategic Marketing
Planning

Contents
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................3
Corporate Strategy.......................................................................................................................3
Business strategy..........................................................................................................................4
History of Marks and Spencer.....................................................................................................5
What is Marks and Spencer corporate and business objectives (SMART).................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7
Books and Journal:.......................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Strategic marketing planning is a continuous process in which company creates plans and
strategies for the marketing process in order to market their product and services in the target
market. In order to create strategic marketing plan it is essential to have a corporate strategy and
business strategy of an organization (Sushchenko, Dekhtyar and Chernysh, 2020). Marks and
Spencer are an organization which offers various products of clothing, food and home essentils
in London since many years. This report contains a deep meaning of corporate strategy and its
uses in the organization. Corporate strategy helps in decision making of business strategy which
is very important to achieve desired goals of any organization. This report also contains
corporate as well as business objectives which are associated with smart criteria.
MAIN BODY
Corporate Strategy
Corporate strategy refers to the highest plan of the organization which helps to understand the
overall objective and goal of a company. Corporate strategy helps to take strategic decision in the
organization. Corporate strategy is an essential part for the success offer organization. In respect
of Marks and Spencer, the company also use corporate strategy to formulate strategic plans for
the organization. There are four components of a corporate strategy that it needs to be focused by
the management of an organization. These important components are explained below:
Allocation of resources: Allocation of resources in any organization generally focuses on two
main resources that are people and capital. In order to allocate these resources effectively and
efficiently in the organization an entrepreneur need to focus on various factors which are related
to this a location (Hasibi and SHOJAEI, 2020). Leader for managers need to ensure that there is
a suitable supply of talent in business as talented human resource lead to success of the
organization. In case of capital it is the most risky resource of any business and it needs to be
invested or are located with proper care stop in order to allocate capital between Internal as well
as external opportunities the management needs to evaluate both the opportunities.
Organizational design: Organizational design refers to the proper structure of a company in
order to create maximum amount of value. In order to design corporate structure of an

organization it is essential for management to utilize centralized as well as decentralized
approach in the organization with the proper reporting structure of individuals (Kazem, Al-Attar
and Al-Yasiri, 2020). Marks and Spencer is an organization in which a decentralized system is
followed because of large number of human resources requirement to handle various stores of
the organization.
Portfolio Management: Portfolio management refers to the process of selection prioritization
and control of programs and projects of an organization in order to deliver strategic objectives
and capacity of the organization. It determines a suitable level of risk that can be e taken by the
organization with the written expectation and market conditions. In Marks and Spencer portfolio
management is used to manage the risk associated with the business through to reducing
correlation and diversification of results across various investment opportunities.
Strategic trade off: Strategic trade off is one of the most difficult aspect of Corporate strategy as
it is really difficult to balance between risk and return across a business. For the purpose of
strategic trade off the main factors which need to be considered are management of risk incentive
and generation of Returns in the organization (Namada, 2020).
Business strategy
Business strategy is a medium for an organization to attend its desired goals. In simple terms it
can be e defined as long term planning for business and cover a period of about 3 to 5 years or
even longer. Organization needs business strategy because it helps them to retain existing
customer in the organization and chase new one for their products and services. In respect of
Marks and Spencer, the organization also uses various business strategies in order to retain their
customers and attract new one to the business. There are three types of business strategies which
are provided by Michael Porter in business. Three of them are explained below:
Differentiation: According to this strategy of Porter a company needs to prove their customer
that the product offered by them is different from the product which is offered by their
competitive and there is no better product in the market. Differentiation business strategy does
not concerned or less concerned with the price and focus on offering differentiate product to the
customers. This theory focus on high quality and sustainability of product and focus on creating
brand image of the organization (Samaddar and Menon, 2021).

Cost leadership: Cost leadership refers to the process of providing product and services at
cheapest possible price to their customers. It is known as cost leadership because the leaders in
this business strategy focus to reduce the price of the product in order to sustain in the
competitive market. This is strategy is useful in case of cut throat competition in the market
where there are so many competitors of the product and customer does not need quality but
product at cheap prices.
Focus: Both the above type of business strategies the management focus on a large portion of
the market but in this type of business strategy the strategy focuses on the small portion of the
market and focus to fulfill lead of fewer people. Might be in this case the needs of fear people
have been fulfilled but it there is less competition in that focused area from other business and
the company have high chances to grow in that area. It is beneficial for the organization who
wants to expand their business in a particular Market by focusing on both the aspects
differentiation and cost leadership but it in a small geographical portion of the market
(Pasquinelli and Vuignier, 2020).
History of Marks and Spencer.
Marks and Spencer is a British organization which was founded in 1884 by Michael Marks and
Thomas Spencer. M&S is a multinational organization whose headquarter is situated in London.
It operates as a retailer as a specialist in clothing, food as well as home products. The company
has its great presence in the market of UK by having 959 stores across the UK. In recent times
the sales of clothing products have been fallen down while the demand for its food product has
been risen very significantly. The company has get its popularity and build reputation in the
market in early 20th century. They company accept the return of unwanted items in the
organization which helps them to get popularity in the market. The company always believe to
emphasis on the quality of the product offered to the public and known for its offering of fair
value for money.
What is Marks and Spencer corporate and business objectives (SMART)
Just like other organization Marks and Spencer also have their own corporate and business goals
which are set by the top management of the organization. In order to set organizational
objectives and goals Marks and Spencer use SMART criteria. Evaluation of SMART criteria
related to the objective of Marks and Spencer is very necessary in order to ascertain that the

objectives are measurable and achievable or not of the organization. S in the smart criteria refers
to the specification of the objective. It is states that the objective needs to be very specific for a
business as it help the organization to achieve it in a very easy manner (Orishede, 2020). M in
the criteria of smart objective refers to the measurable of the objective. The objective which is
set by Marks and Spencer needs to be measurable in order to attain them as qualitative data
cannot be measured and it will not be possible for the organization to measure their performance
if the objective will not be measurable. A in the criteria of smart objective refers to the
attainability of goals of the organization. In order to achieve success in the business the objective
which is set by the organization should be attainable as unattainable objective can waste the
resources and time of the organization. R refers to the relevance of the objective. Objectives
needs to be relevant or realistic to be achieved by the organization as unrealistic objectives
cannot be obtained by the organization. Last but not the least T refers to the time bound in this is
smart criteria. An objective must have time bound as it provides a motivation to the management
to accomplish the objective of the organization and reduce the wastage of time in the
organization (Alyfanti, 2020).
CONCLUSION
From all of the above discussion it can be concluded that corporate strategy is an essential part of
decision making of an organization in order to make strategic decisions it is essential to have an
objective of the business to give it a direction where it will go. Corporate strategy also helps
business strategy to set goals for the organization.

REFERENCES
Books and Journal:
Sushchenko, O., Dekhtyar, N. and Chernysh, I., 2020. The Use of Strategic Marketing Tools for
Territories to Develop the Domestic Tourism Resource Potential. ЕКОНОМІКА І
РЕГІОН Науковий вісник, (4 (79)), pp.28-34.
Kazem, J.R., Al-Attar, F.H. and Al-Yasiri, A.M., 2020. Leadership Characteristics and Their
Role in Marketing Strategic Planning in Commercial Banks Operating in
Jordan. Muthanna Journal of Administrative and Economic Sciences, 10(3).
Samaddar, K. and Menon, P., 2021. Non-deceptive counterfeit products: a morphological
analysis of literature and future research agenda. Journal of Strategic Marketing, pp.1-24.
Pasquinelli, C. and Vuignier, R., 2020. Place marketing, policy integration and governance
complexity: an analytical framework for FDI promotion. European Planning
Studies, 28(7), pp.1413-1430.
Orishede, F., 2020. IMPACT OF STRATEGIC PLANNING ON ORGANISATIONAL
GROWTH IN THE NIGERIA MANUFACTURING SECTOR. African Journal of Social
and Behavioural Sciences, 10(1).
Alyfanti, K., 2020. Strategic Planning to Promote the Cultural Heritage. The Business Model
Canvas for the Kapodestrian Buildings of the Island of Aegina, Greece. In Strategic
Innovative Marketing and Tourism (pp. 499-509). Springer, Cham.
Namada, J.M., 2020. The Role of Strategy Implementation in the Relationship Between Strategic
Planning Systems and Performance. International Journal of Business Strategy and
Automation (IJBSA), 1(1), pp.1-23.
Hasibi, S. and SHOJAEI, V., 2020. Strategic Analysis of Sports Tourism Marketing Mix in
Mazandaran with 7P's Approach.