In today’s business industry, there are a number of management and external factors that each organisation has to deal with during day-to-day circumstances. These factors include topic areas such as technology, sustainability, leadership and management and the common environmental factors. On a global scale, every organisation will act differently which brings the number of competitive elements to rise. Within my essay I will discuss these issues in relation to Marks and Spencer, a major British multinational retailer. As a leading high street name, they specialise in the selling of clothing, home goods, and luxury food products making it a major competitor to other retailers.
In relation to business management, the Mintzberg approach, known as the 5 P’s: Plan, Ploy, Pattern, Position, Perspective relates to M&S. In recent news, the management of the M&S Hydepark storage and distribution facility stated that 134 employees would be affected as operations at the site were “scaled down” around April 5th. (DHL spokesperson ‘The Times'). Over past months, meetings have taken place with the affected staff to discuss their options that include; taking redundancy or being redeployed in other areas of the businesses. Many feel this is an issue, however due to the managers and structure in place at M&S, they can make this work. Resulting in aid being delivered to help build an organisation with the resources and competences of what people need. The Mintzberg role suggests every manager’s job combines these roles. M&S managers should recognise they should use many of the roles as they influence others to act upon the future challenges. For the current employees to be successful they need to know what to do, understand their customers, deal...
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...success overnight. The structure of the current business environment is influenced by the characteristics of the market, which determine the behaviour of firms within the market. This behaviour includes the extent to which firms compete on price, innovation and how much they focus on dealing with day-to-day market challenges. For environmental factors all firms will be seen as acting ethically. We still have a business culture based around short-term financial success, in terms of quick profits. All businesses in the world face the same problem. They have limited or finite resources, firms simply don’t have enough resources at their disposal to satisfy all their needs. This means management choices must be made, whereby decisions are needed to select how to allocate scarce resources amongst a range of competing uses thrown up by the changing business environment.
lose their receipt and are still able to return their item which is another demonstration of the flexibility of the return policy.
The two contrasting businesses described in this report will be, Marks&Spencers Public Limited Company (PLC) and Oxfam. Marks & Spencer 's was a start up retailing company founded in 1884. They originally started as a small stall in Kirkgate Market, Leeds however over the years they have successfully expanded as a well known brand and international retailer. Their main purpose is to make as much profit as possible while satisfying their customers with outstanding products. Oxfam was a start up charitable company founded in 1942. They originally started during the Second World War in aim to ensure the supply of relief to civilians and have also successfully expanded as a well known brand and Global Business. Their main purpose is to provide appropriate support and help to those which are in need of their service.
Introduction The retail industry has always been a very competitive environment when dealing with sales and maintaining up to date with the current trends. Ross Stores has become one of the most successful companies in the apparel business since established in 1982 by Stuart Moldaw. (Ross Stores, Inc. History, n.d.).
Primark is an established clothing retailer and also ranges products such as accessories and homeware, by 2012 Primark had 238 branches running internationally across Europe (Primark, 2016a). The company was first located in Dublin, where they were initially named Pennys, and have grown into becoming a branded name for offering a fashionable look for a driven value (Primark, 2016a). Just like many retailers, Primark does not manufacture their goods themselves, but use contact suppliers to produce their good to specification, souring from across Europe and Asia. (Primark, 2016b).
With forward movement in society, it is important to consider not just what will propel most toward success, but also what will help to sustain the environment along the way. What may have been considered appropriate decades ago, may no longer be socially acceptable due to the changes observed in both the business world and the environment (Fiske, 2010). Therefore, it is important for organizations thriving in today?s economy to consider how they may capitalize most effectively from their product or service of choice while minimizing or eliminating any damages along the way (Knoke, 2012).
“Macy’s operating margin in 3Q15 fell to 4.4% from 6.8% in 3Q14, mainly due to asset impairment charges of $111 million related to the plans to close 35 to 40 stores in early 2016 (Bailey).” This decline was a result from not only lower sales but the company’s investments in digital growth in its Bluemercury expansion, as well as cost of entry into the China market and additional investment in the Backstage stores (Bailey). These factors could have appeared more detrimental if it had not been for the lower marketing expenses, restructuring initiatives, and a reduction in bonus accrual that were intended to counteract weak sales performance (Bailey). Higher digital growth helped to offset the decrease in earnings ("Macy 's Earnings Fall for
According to JCP 10-K in the article Item 1A. Risk Factors paragraph 11, JC Penney’s depend on operations beginning with security, consistency, and integrity. There are various operation systems and data centers, including the point-of-sale systems in the stores, data centers that process transactions, communication systems, and various software applications used throughout the company to track inventory flow, process transactions and generate performance and financial reports.(JCP 10-K, 2013). JC Penney has great tools to track all of the information needed sales purposes. Although these tools can help JC Penney with tracking inventory and processing transactions, etc. There are also difficulties that can be encountered when JC Penney upgrades or develops new systems. These difficulties can lead to losses and unwanted expenses due to disrupting business operations.
PRIMARK’s Introduction: This is an international clothing brand based in the Europe and UK. Apart from that, the company has more than 250 stores and is also looking to open the store in the USA. Now, the company management team decided to open the branch in New Zealand and hire me as the manager of the store. I will take care of all the company objectives and goals to be successful. Q: 1: Henry Mintzberg management roles: Role category Role type Role nature Interpersonal Figure Head Leader Liaison I will design the clothes after analysis the external market environment and market situation.
According to the annual report of Mark& Spencer, they has been set up 776 stores in the Uk and aim to keep selling high quality ,great value food and staying ahead in womenswear, lingerie and menswear. Moreover, M&S has attributed the high level of trust on the high street, and has also concentrated on ensuring their corporate governance is meaningful, relevant and underpin their decision-marking with high quality in all areas of strategy, performance, responsibility and accountability. Their collective and individual performance review is constructed by honest and constructive feedback to make the border play the biggest role in the boardrom. The goverance framework is also published on their website. Therefore, M&S's shareholders and stakeholders can easily find what standards the board of M&S set for themself.
This report will investigate the British retailer Marks and Spencer. It will analyse why decision making, planning and goal setting are important to the organisation. Decision making is a process of identifying problems and opportunities then resolving them. Mission planning is the way that organisations aim to achieve their goals. All organisations have goals, these are the reasons that the company exists. Boddy (2005:178) states “A goal is a desired future state for an organisational unit. Goals provide a set of detailed objectives for an organisation’s desired outcomes”. Within this report there is a brief outline and history of Marks and Spencer. It will then look at the missions and goals of the organisation and will go on to critically evaluate planning and decision making processes that the organisation could be using. To conclude it will summarise the findings.
Customer demands are changing, and include the demand for a higher level of CSR, greater responsiveness to customer feedback, accessibility to sustainable goods, and organic foods and more. ASDA is more aware and responsive to these because of their active CSR campaign, and social media presence (ASDA Sustainability; 2016; Penderous, 2013). However, TESCO has an online shopping platform, clubcard services, and social media presence, all of which are +supporting social interaction with consumers and ongoing loyalty, largely built on a perceived social relationship (Molloy, 2016; Drennan, 2012).
Dunnes Stores is an indigenous, family owned Irish Company. The Company is a retailer in both the food and textile market who work around the principle of providing competitive prices, high quality products and a vast variety of choices. The company’s motto of “Better Value” looks to draw in all these principles together.
Stuart Hart, in a business article, discusses the tough task for companies to make a sustainable global ec...
In the case, Marks & Spencer and Zara, it discusses two business process designs that each company took. You first had Marks & Spencer, who had a more traditional approach. Their chain started of with the buying team, design, developers, merchandisers, technologist, suppliers, logistics, and lastly the store. Zara, however, comes up with a new innovative design. With this new design in effect the delivery of new collections only has a lead-time of 5 days. They were able to cut down this time due to the fact that products where mainly produced on Galicia.
In this environment conscious world, there is a growing argument about the ways in which a business should run its activities that should not have any negative impact on the environment overall. Raderbauer, M. (2011) A research done at the University of Exeter indicated that Industry has been the perpetrator behind ruining the environment for fulfilling its short-term profits instead of long-term environment consequences. Many businesses have understood the importance of preserving the environment and thus it is in the betterment of its own business, keeping in mind the long-term profits they can have while making environment responsible decisions. Business are more affected by environment because they run with the help of all the raw materials