LSBM306 - Strategy, Enterprise & Innovation: M&S Strategic Report

This report provides a comprehensive strategic analysis of Marks & Spencer (M&S), a multinational UK brand, focusing on its internal resources, capabilities, and external environment. It begins with a SWOT analysis to identify the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, followed by a PESTLE analysis to evaluate the political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors affecting the business. The report then applies Porter's Five Forces framework to assess the competitive intensity and attractiveness of the industry. The analysis covers aspects such as the threat of new entrants, the threat of substitutes, the bargaining power of buyers and suppliers, and the intensity of competitive rivalry, providing insights into M&S's strategic position and potential for future growth. Desklib is your go-to platform for accessing a wide range of study resources, including past papers and solved assignments, designed to support students in their academic endeavors.

STRATEGY, ENTERPRISE
AND INNOVATION

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................3
SWOT analysis...........................................................................................................................3
PESTLE analysis.........................................................................................................................4
Porter five forces.........................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
The strategy, enterprise and innovations are defined as by applying the creativity in order to
introducing new ideas and solution. Innovation strategy is important for the organisation by
applying the unique ideas for designing the systematic approach for specific competitive needs
(Al-Shammari, 2021). The report is based on the Mark and Spencer’s which is multination brand
of UK, there are more than 194 in the UK and all over the world. The revenue generated by the
company is more than 500 million per year but it is time to expanding he business. Moreover,
report discuss the internal resources and capabilities of the organisation advantages by VRIO
model. Explaining the external factors that are affected the activities of the firm by PESTLE
analysis with its mini poster. Further, analysing the Porter five forces for analysing the
competitive advantages of the firm by evaluating them on the basis of influencing
entrepreneurial activities and profitability of the industry.
SWOT analysis
It is best method in defining the strong and weak areas of particular firm and consists of 4 parts
that are described as below:
Strength:
There are certain strengths of the firm such as Right expansion, From the small store to big
showrooms in the current era the cited firm was successful in implementing the business plan in
efficient manner. Moreover, it is now able to offer variety of products according to the demand
of the customer. Also, it is one of the best organizations of the company. Business philosophy,
the low-cost strategy adopted by the company has allowed customers to have different categories
of products at reasonable prices that were also major cause of success for the organization (Bose,
2020). Moreover, it was successful in attracting large number of people from different income
groups. Innovative promotion technique, this was also a major strength for the cited firms as it
was able to sells its various clothes and other products through using better promotion techniques
where each product was compared with the price of competitors. Hence, such techniques help to
retain old customers and also attract potential customer for the same.
Weakness:
Brand switching, spite of loyalty programmers and coupons it is very challenging for the
firm to retain its customers as there is always risk of brand switching. Sometimes organization
have to suffer because of the selling at low price or discount in order to attract the customer.

Low margins, is also very difficult for the quoted firm to keep the prices low in comparison to
the competition is due to fluctuations in prices of good that is caused by change in prices of raw
materials and other goods that increase the costs of final product. Moreover, company sale only
quality of products at high rates because it is the strategy to attract the customer but it went
wrong for sometimes where customer is willing to bargaining with the product.
Opportunities:
Remote areas, firm has the opportunity to grow its business in remote areas where goods are not
available easily and are charged higher prices (Bruijl, 2018). 24 hours service, like other
organization quoted firm need to introduce self-checkout points that will allow customers to
consume goods in any particular point of time. Customer can also book their product at any time
at online in order to help the firm for making profit and increases the sales with increasing the
profit margin of the company. Moreover, it will be source of increasing sales. Mergers,
organization can merge with the big company in order to expand the business and it helps to
grow the firm and increases the profit margin of the Mark & Spencer’s. Further, company can
acquire the small business in order to expansion and support the other firm by making
acquisition.
Threats:
Intense competition, another threat to the firm is intense competition in the grocery and
retail sector that may decrease the revenue generation of the firm in long run. There are so many
competitors who are likely to copy the product of organization in order to decreases the
competition. Major competitors are Tesco, Sainsbury etc. who have better customer that can
helped company in grow.
PESTLE analysis
Analysis of M&S on its tactics for examines the factors related such as external such as
economic, political, technological, social, legal and environmental and their impact on the
organisation.
Political- There are more than 1200 plus store all over the world and headquarters in the UK.
Organisation has the benefit of EC’s trade market that are dealing for decreasing the cost of the
sourcing (Chatzoglou and et.al., 2018). It is beneficial for the firm in order to sale the product all
over the world with any restriction related to taxes and tariffs. It has been analyzed that Mark &

Spencer is very close with the government in context to interaction for protecting the legitimate
interest.
Economic- In this factor’s organisation is impacted by the inflation in order to rise affect
the firm operating method of the company at economic prices. All the factor related to economy
are such as interest rates, economic growth pattern, inflation rates. Factors such as inflation rate,
unemployment rate, trade restrictions etc. are major cause of problems for quoted firm.
Moreover, salary expectations of M&S workers increased that result in higher production cost
that may also create a negative impact as demand of its shareholders have to be met to work in
long run.
Social factor:
Other factors such as change in attitudes and trends may also affect the operations of the
business. These factors must be closely analyzed by the firm so that demands can be met
accordingly. Social factors are related to such religion, wealth, buying habits, family size,
education level etc. that are affected the buying behavior of customer.
Technological factors:
Technology needs to be upgraded timely so that better customer experience can be given. On the
other hand, use of old technologies and production methods may increase the costs of products
and also cause more delivery time (Simões, 2020). In context of M&S this factor is turned out
be positive as it has come up with an idea of selling its goods online and also given the option of
collecting purchases from the nearer store. Moreover, in the manufacturing process use of big
data and artificial intelligence also reduce the human efforts and provide accurate data results in
short period of time.
Legal factors:
Employment rate, wage rate and various government rules and regulations etc. affects the
working of the firm on large scale. These factors need to be fully followed so that there are no
future hindrances in the operations of business. Moreover, minimum wage decided by the UK
government need to be given to the all the workers to ensure employee retention and marinating
the brand image of the firm.
Environmental factors:
Environment pollution in any form such as air, land or water can harm the natural
resources and impact living beings. Hence, organizations need to make sure that all the

manufacturing process is done in environment friendly manner so that customers value the brand
and develops brand loyalty. Moreover, in this context M&S is working hard to reduce carbon
emissions in its daily operations. Also, it is aiming to reduce plastic waste in production process
and become more socially responsible firm in the future.
Porter five forces
Porter five forces model analyses the basic structure that are help to extend in every industry,
also it is the combination of five essential factors that are help to analyse the particular sector of
PESTLE ANALYSIS
Political Factors
There are more than 1200 plus store all over the
world and headquarters in the UK. Organisation
has the benefit of EC’s trade market that are
dealing for decreasing the cost of the sourcing. It is
beneficial for the firm in order to sale the product
all over the world with any restriction related to
taxes and tariffs.
Economic Factors
In this factor’s organisation is impacted by the
inflation in order to rise affect the firm operating
method of the company at economic prices. All the
factor related to economy are such as interest rates,
economic growth pattern, inflation rates. Factors such
as inflation rate, unemployment rate, trade restrictions
etc.
Technological factors
Technology needs to be upgraded timely so that better
customer experience can be given. On the other hand,
use of old technologies and production methods may
increase the costs of products and also cause more
delivery time.
Environmental factors
Environment pollution in any form such as air, land
or water can harm the natural resources and impact
living beings. Hence, organizations need to make
sure that all the manufacturing process is done in
environment friendly manner so that customers value
the brand and develops brand loyalty.
Social factor
Other factors such as change in attitudes and trends may also affect the operations of the business. These factors must be
closely analyzed by the firm so that demands can be met accordingly. Social factors are related to such religion, wealth, buying
habits, family size, education level etc. that are affected the buying behavior of customer.

the key driver of the success (Prasasti, 2020). It has been also identifier that strategy is
formulated on the growth factors rather than the forecast and scenarios, such five factors for
M&S are as follows.
Threat of new entry (low)- M&S has low threat of new entry because it has ability to
undercut the new company with the good reputation of the firm. The larger number of products
are offered by company, so that existing firm have concerned about the products and services
offered by another firm. Also, the profitable market attracts the new entrants so that the market
effectively in order to protect the technologies. On other side, only those company can survive
those have good market position. When the company has strong barrier, it does not worry about
the new entrance, also stand together in the competitive market. However, that would be possible
that competitor have not enough money to access the build the network in UK.
Threats of substitute (low)- M&S has the wide variety of products in order to offer the
customer. It sells the wide variety of substitutes products so that customer cannot goes to the
competitor’s product (Miethlich and Oldenburg, 2019). So that customer can easy to buy the
product from the same place. Is has been stated that it is irrelevant for M&S in order to threat of
substitute products. However, it is seen that there are many of the new competitors who are copy
the product with the low profit margin and so that they can attract the customer in order to
increases the profit of the competitors’ firm.
Power of buyer or customers (high)- Organisation serves variety of products to the billions of
the customer in every month from the offline stores and online. The power of byer’s bargaining
is comparatively low in the UK and on other hand it is seen that if competitors offered the
product at the discount such as Tesco and ASDA also provide the product with good offers or
discount at the festive season. However, some of the analysists are argued on that over the
grocery products the bargaining power of the customer is high in United Kingdom because of the
various competitors such as Poundland, Lidl, Aldi etc. Also, some of the organisation offers the
product at the low rate so that it attracts the customer as well in context to earn profit (Pertiwi,
2021).
Power of supplier (high)- M&S has good terms with the supplier because it works with
more than 6000 suppliers in United Kingdom and thousands of suppliers in abroad. However, all
the supplier are not exerting any particular power on the company in order to increases the profit

margin of the company. It is argued that firm accused for bullying the suppliers for cut the price
of the product. Sometimes it is also blamed for the squeeze the suppliers.
Competitive rivalry (high)- M&S has number of competitors which are powerful in the
UK, all the competitors are spent a lot in the marketing and advertisement of product and
services. So that competitors have the technique to grow in the market (Varelas and
Georgopoulos, 2017). The pressure from the rivals is intense in order to become the market
leader. Further, the prices set by the competitors are affected the profit margin of the
organisation. However, the performance of the firm has been disappointing the sales of the
products. That results in losses the jobs and few of the stores are expected to open.
CONCLUSION
It has been analysed those strategies for organisation played important role in order to
innovate the firms and helps to grow. For the report selected company was the Mark & Spencer’s
so that project identifies the factors that are affected the company. The report analysed the
internal factors that are affect the company by SWOT analysis in order to identify the strength
and weakness of the firm and how to deal with opportunities and threats. Moreover, identified
the external factors that are affected the company in the entrepreneurial activities of the
organisation by the PESTLE analysis with the mini-map that showed the how the factors are
impact on the industry while it is growing. Further, evaluated the competitive forces by porter
five forces to know about how these forces are affect the entrepreneurial activities and the
profitability within the organisation.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Al-Shammari, M.A., 2021. Carrying Out A Strategic Study for Lafarge to Recommend A New
Strategic Direction for This Organisation Which Could Improve Its Competitive
Advantage in the Construction Industry.
Bose, I., 2020. Strategic Competitive analysis of a banking organization in UAE: A study on
Dubai Islamic Bank, UAE. The USV Annals of Economics and Public
Administration, 20(1 (31)), pp.90-104.
Bruijl, G.H.T., 2018. The relevance of Porter's five forces in today's innovative and changing
business environment. Available at SSRN 3192207.
Chatzoglou, P. and et.al., 2018. The role of firm-specific factors in the strategy-performance
relationship: Revisiting the resource-based view of the firm and the VRIO
framework. Management Research Review.
Miethlich, B. and Oldenburg, A.G., 2019. The Employment of Persons with Disabilities as a
Strategic Asset: A Resource-Based-View using the Value-Rarity-Imitability-Organization
(VRIO) Framework. Journal of Eastern Europe Research in Business and Economics, 1,
pp.1-13.
Pertiwi, Y.Z., 2021. Analysis Of Marketing Strategies Based On Porter Model In Freight
Forwarding Companies For Supporting Export And Import Activities (Case Study At Pt.
Global Trans Nusa Pekanbaru) (Doctoral dissertation, Politeknik Negeri Bengkalis).
Prasasti, A.K., 2020. Analisis Keunggulan Bersaing Berdasarkan Metode Five Forces Porter
Pada Hotel Pelangi Malang. Jurnal Ilmiah Mahasiswa FEB, 8(1).
Simões, E.N., 2020. A decision support system application module-for PESTLE analysis-
competitive intelligence algorithm (Doctoral dissertation).
Varelas, S. and Georgopoulos, N., 2017. Porter’s competitive forces in the modern globalized
hospitality sector–the case of a Greek tourism destination. J Tour Res, 18, pp.121-131.