Sustainability Strategies at Marks and Spencer

Introduction

Marks and Spencer is one of the major multinational retailers of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in the city of London. The firm operates more than 1500 stores worldwide and offers around 7 different brands. In order to manage the brand sustainability in spite of the issues, the organization in recent times has taken several new approaches. The report has been mainly focused on M&S’s fashion brands that are facing major challenges in the competitive business environment based in the UK-based market.

PESTLE Analysis of Marks and Spencer:

Porter’s 5 forces analysis of Marks and Spencer

Competition: M&S has been vulnerable to competitors due to its selling of apparel section in the business.

Competitors such as Primark, Next, and others like ASDA group and many more are on the similar path of competition with M&S (Global Data, 2020). However, M&S have lost its clothing brand market decline in front of Primark in this industry competition.

Threat of Substitutes: Threat includes substitution from other retailers who produce similar garment production.

Tesco and Asda in order to have a market hand started introducing cheaper alternatives thereby increasing a chance of substitution.

Threat of New Entrants: To make a big market investment load of capital investment needs to be done (Wood, 2020). Thus, in this aspect chances of entering new entrants soon would be quite low. Also, M&S have a strong brand name and have been successful in retaining customers for long making this threat quite insignificant.

Bargaining power of buyers: Due to slowdown of the UK economy, powers of customer bargaining have been high also because of easy availability of other alternatives (Topics, 2020). Hence, it had affected on the bargaining power of buyers in a much lower range expectation.

Bargaining power of Suppliers: This probability has been low as M&S sells their own branded products as well and thereby buys raw products more than finished goods (Russell, 2020).

Supply chain Management of Clothing section in M&S

Customer becomes the starting as well as end user of the supply chain. After receiving product orders, planning starts through production and material requirements by the M&S departments. The clothing supply has been over produced, which needs to be reduced by £100 million (Logistics Manager Magazine, 2020). The production department of M&S collects the raw materials and produces the final products and transportation department transports to the specified locations of delivery.

Value chain

In case of inbound logistics, there has been absolute transparency regarding the materials and products. Smart packaging technologies enable quality and sustainability of green apparel production. Outbound logistics include Multiuser Warehouse System (Koval et al. 2019). Promotions through prints, TV, social media have been strategically used by M&S and their services include maximum customer satisfaction.

BCG Matrix Analysis for M&S

The BCG Model mainly focuses on the products of a particular company, here that would be the British retailer named Marks and Spencer. As the model can be aptly applied on a firm having a wide range of fashion variety it is chosen for this study also to review different brand and product lines of the M&S (Guta, 2017). Each of the BCG elements is identified as follows:

Dog Products: The Autograph range of M&S is a premium quality pricey clothing range, for both the men and women (Marksandspencer.com. 2020). This particular product line has experienced lower growth and market share compared to the other ranges (Smart insights. 2020). Despite its placement in this category, it has also given some financial input to the company. · Question Mark Products: Clothing brands in M&S have never been considered as a major still experienced a high growth with around 400 stores across the nation (Forbes. 2020). · Cash Cows: The Classic range of M&S with strong market demand can be considered to be the cash cow product line. · Star Products: The female Lingerie line still leads the UK market with remarkable growth (Smart Insights, 2020). Since old times it has dominated the market and now known across the world.

Different Leadership styles

Leadership styles are the means to influence the employees of an organization. They directly affect the employee performance so are essential for promoting better employee participation. Some giant organizations are likely to opt for the best leadership style considering their employee needs. Some of these styles are as follows:

· Laissez-Faire Leadership: This leadership style involves a manager who is not likely to supervise the employees rather grants them the authoritative power to regulate the work according to their vision (Glambek et al. 2018). The guidance for the employees is minimal in this case. Such a leadership approach is effective in case of self-motivated and well trained workers as they can deal with a job efficiently without the leader’s input. Although the employee performance under this approach seems to have great potential yet it is not suitable for the novice employees who require supervision.

· Transformational Leadership: This leadership approach is regarded as an important asset within a firm. Such a style aids the growth and improvement of an organization. A transformational leader tends to serve the employees as a role model. This style inspires the followers and encourages the employees to accept greater ownership (Lin et al. 2019). The main objective of such a leadership style is better collaboration with the employees. Changes are most welcomed in this case that helps a team to create a vision and obtain the goal through the adaption of the new alterations.

· Charismatic Leadership: The adoption of Charismatic style of leadership mainly focuses on inspiring the employees to go beyond their capabilities. In order to reach a goal such leaders take risks and tend to encourage their followers in the best way possible. As stated by Grabo et al. (2017) personality of a charismatic leader shows compassion, confidence and extraordinary communication. Such strong personalities are appropriate for gaining employee admiration in an organization. In other words under such a leadership style the employees remain highly motivated to succeed in a job, especially by their leader.

Various Management Styles

Different management styles have been found to affect employee engagement and productivity of various organizations differently. An organization’s performances vary to a great extent depending on its management approach. Some of the management styles are as follows:

· Consultative Management: Consultative management involves a manager who is likely to consult with each team member in order to make an effective decision. In this type of management conduct the whole team is given equal value in terms of critical discussions. The employees are heard, and their skills are utilized in the best way possible. In other words the manager in this case never hesitates to listen to the thoughts of his employees. In various organizations such a management style is chosen so that every time a team reaches a best potential solution to an issue (Shirvani et al. 2019). Moreover, in such a scenario employee feedback is obtained regularly and consultation processes are kept consistent. The team manager mostly endorses himself as a servant of the other members of the team that he leads.

· Transactional Management: This management style in particular focuses on motivating the employees in order to obtain optimum input from them. Employees are provided with extrinsic rewards such as stock offers, fair incentives and various bonuses. In this scenario organizations are often found to pay for piece-work and that increases employee engagement within the company. This management style is believed to be very effective for managing the employees successfully (Khan et al. 2018). Although this approach is great for short-term projects yet cannot be considered to be an effective substitute for intrinsic reward approach. This is unsuitable for long running projects as it has been often found to suppress creativity of the employees.

Different leadership and management styles and organizational culture of Marks and Spencer

According to the graph, clothing sales are equally at pressure that has mainly affected on the growing market (Statista.com. 2020). Proper communication enables proper working and runs the business smoothly. Thus, the line to management has been extremely precise regarding the leadership and the management style the company flaunts for smooth running of the business (Leadershape.biz, 2020). The leadership style, culture and the mode of management have been in a pivotal position due to its importance in taking vital decisions. Marks and Spencer have thus chosen their styles according to the need of the market and have also implemented management mix whenever required.

Management or Leadership style

Marks and Spencer follows Consultative management style where the leader of the team discusses the plans and propagandas with the team mates before implementation (Marksandspencer.com. 2020). The final decision would include the decision made by the entire members of the unit and not only on the leader solely. Here, the managers would like to draw innumerable viewpoints before coming to a decision. With more views and opinions, the rate of success increases. This kind of management style requires great capability of listening power and exclusive working experiences with the entire team. This management style involves a series of mechanisms like implementation of team briefing, suggestion panels, discussion rooms and so on. For example, the marketing department of Marks and Spencer before launching a new range of ladies fashionable garments firstly analyzes and discusses various aspects with the team rather than launching it spontaneously. It has been seen that though the management style of Marks and Spencer have been mostly Consultative in nature, it also uses democratic management styles at times and thereby shows Laissez-faire leadership in business conduction (Qazi et al. 2017). Other than these M&S have also shown many different management styles but that depended on the choice of the management team, the circumstantial issues and the hierarchical strata. The leadership style flaunted by Marks and Spencer includes, Laissez-faire where the leader leaves the entire decisions on his team members. The members become responsible for choosing an outcome as a result of their agreements. According survey of market, the medium status of the M&S boards including the managing director or the marketing director often shows this kind of leadership style (Marksandspencer.com, 2020). They have been confident despite letting their subordinates make decisions due to their expatriation in their field and the confidence of allowing others to make choices as per their willingness. The higher designated board members also sometimes show autocratic modes of leadership. The organisation often commands their juniors regarding the activities that need to be done and followed. This may start right from the production stages up to the logistical units and even after that. The managers on the top level position sport the autocratic style in Marks and Spencer because of the absence of superior managers over them (Asghar and Oino, 2017). Thus they hold the topmost position in the line of command. With enough knowledge and skills in the respective field they have prior understanding of the entire process and thus could implement autocratic style to those working below them.

Organizational Culture

M&S culture has been mostly customer driven prioritizing customer satisfaction thereby increasing loyalty and retention towards their brand. Through this the business makes real efforts in implementing steps to improve customer services by making market research and employing staff with proper training. As opined by Rashid (2016) the business has been trying to update and expand by the usage of modern technologies like e-commerce. One of the most admirable aspects of the company has been their outlook towards adaptation to changes and thus grabs the opportunity for betterment (Mekraz and Gundala, 2016). Being flexible and dynamic helped them in maintaining their culture in an affirmative zone.

Recommendation

As the Autograph range has been recognized as the Dog product the firm M&S can remove the line from the clothing portfolio so that the resources are not wasted behind it. · Other than the products as the firm is subjected to several environmental risks, it should look upon this matter both at global and local level. The organization might have innovation of their products and design their disposal in an eco-friendly manner. · More careful handling of waste material and natural resources would be a must for the firm. · In order to obtain product sustainability they need to pay attention to social equality and also need to inspire and engage the customers irrespective of community. · They should concentrate more on their own products rather than bothering about cheap copies produced by their market competitors. · The firm can also incorporate their innovative approaches to enhance the value chain elements. Moreover, strong partnerships at global level can be important for their business. This would help them to identify the issues customers need better.

Conclusion

From the overall analysis regarding the market situation and business style of the Marks and Spencer Company it can be acknowledged that the market of the concerned firm is mostly customer driven. Despite being a giant fashion retailer there remain some issues regarding excess tax imposition after the exit from European Union. At the same time, threats from a few brands producing variations in clothing lines have also influenced largely on the business as well. In the case of management style the organization has been found to mainly go for Laissez-Faire style and Authoritative only in case of higher authorities. Despite their strong market position the firm has taken new innovative approaches to overcome the existing issues.

References

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Lin, S.H., Scott, B.A. and Matta, F.K., 2019. The dark side of transformational leader behaviors for leaders themselves: A conservation of resources perspective. Academy of Management Journal, 62(5), pp.1556-1582.

Rashid, M.D., 2016. Perception of Employee’s about the Human Resource Management Practices (Talent Management) in Marks and Spencer in Waterloo, London (Doctoral dissertation, University of East London).

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