Business Report on Sw and Pest Analysis of Marks & Spencer

Business Report on SW and PEST analysis of Marks & Spencer plc

Introduction

Marks & Spencer plc (as known as M&S) is a major retail company with various kinds of products, providing clothes, home products and food items and owning different of brands to offer their products (Marks & Spencer, 2014). This British retail giant, whose headquarter located in London, is not only with 703 stores in the United Kingdom, but also have almost 300 stores across Europe, Middle East, and Asia (Marks & Spencer, 2014). For M&S, their goal is ‘to make aspirational quality accessible to all’, and their vision is ‘to be the standard against which all others are measured’ (Marks & Spencer, 2014).

Analysis

a. Strengths

High quality products: Marks & Spencer have high quality requirement for every suppliers by asking the products which need to meet quality, safety, environmental, and social standards. M&S’s foods are valued as quality, innovation and convenience for customers (Marks & Spencer Annual Review, 2013). That is the main point for the success of M&S.

Own brand: Marks & Spencer is the first retailer created their own brand. The result for it is that M&S’s suppliers do not need to invest their money into developing the value of the brand, then that can decrease the supplied costs. Because of lower purchase price, the retailer, M&S, can reduce the sale price, making the sales volume go up, and increasing the profits (Guardian, 2010).

Customer service: As a market oriented company, M&S always provide superior service for customers, trying to make a great relationship between customer and M&S. According to the ranking from Retail Time (2013), Marks & Spencer is UK’s top shop for the good customer service. For example, in the M&S’s stores, there are always having a number of the staff for customer if somebody needs help and assistance. Result of it is that M&S’s customer will loyal to M&S.

b. Weaknesses

Lack of the market share on clothes: Marks & Spencer...