This is a report on Marks and Spencer a well known retail company in
the UK. Marks and Spencer has also recently been in the news for
falling profit and sales in 1999/2000. So Marks and Spencer is now on
its way to recovery. It’s famous for setting the highest of standards
in the retail industry, pioneering its own charge card and generating
such snob value on its products, yet controlling prices to bring their
products within most people's reach. Marks and Spencer has extended
its brand overseas where it continues to achieve substantial growth.
This is likely to be its main source of growth in the near and long
term future as the company develops its franchise business.
There are around 628 locations for Marks and Spencer’s. The company
makes great weight of how it is run - first class customer service,
operating efficiency (through economies of scale), long-term
partnership with suppliers, financial services, staff rewards and
overall packages the best in the high street. Following a wide-ranging
and detailed strategic review of its business, the Board of Marks &
Spencer has announced significant changes to the Group strategy and
structure. The Board and management team is committed to restoring
profitable growth. This will be achieved by total focus on the
recovery of the UK Retail business.
The organisation has always monitored its performance by first making
clear objectives for the business. Without clear objectives it is
difficult to evaluate what a marketing plan is trying to achieve or
whether the plan has been successful. It is usual to translate
marketing objectives into quantifiable “result areas”, such as market
share, market penetration or growth of sales. Some of these may be
further broken down into specific sales volumes, value goals or
geographical targets. Marketing objectives allow Marks and Spencer to
have a basis for evaluation which can then be analysed after a certain
period of time. Each department most make sure that the organisational
activities are co-ordinated in such a way that marketing objectives
are met.
Every organisation including Marks and Spencer involved in a marketing
activity is faced with a number of constraints which seem to hinder
their performances when monitored. Internal constraints relate to the
resources available for Marks and Spencer, while External constraints
involve a series of factors within the business environment that limit
in one way or another, the organisation’s activities. Examples are
below:
Ø Consumers
Ø Competitors
Ø Economy
Ø The law
Marks and Spencer seem to monitor their performance by being market
focused as they research all these constraints fully and will try to
find solutions that enable it to turn weaknesses into their strengths
threats into opportunities.
Reformers introduced the policy of concentrating Indians by giving them a choice to die or getting civilized into the American culture. In which Indians will be trained to be skilled worker or farmer and will also be taught the values, (American) language and morals. Many Indians refused this policy, and then soon after the government adopted the policy of the Dawes Act in 1887. Under the Dawes Act of 1887 Indian families were each granted 160 acres. This drew many Indians, but due to lack or no farming skills they fail to make money out of it, which led to reserved lands not allocated to Indians being open to non- Indian homesteader. In which, Whites were benefited more than anyone else. Later Burke Act was being passed in 1906 to fix the
The Dawes Act was a policy passed on February 18, 1887, by Massachusetts senator Henry Dawes. The act stated that the president (which at the time was Grover Cleaveland), could break up land in Reservations, and organize them into plots. The plots ranged in size from forty to one-hundred sixty acres. The plots were then distributed out to the Indians. From there, they were expected to farm it. That was an attempt to assimilate them. Assimilating the Indians was very important to settlers. They believed that if they could make them “more American”, they could have more control over them.
Clothing manufacturer American Apparel has a long notorious history for pushing the limits with their 'risqué ad campaigns. Their advertisements has been condemned sexual exploiting women and essentially using pornography to sell its clothes. American Apparel has become one the most pornographic advertisers of all time.
The blueprint of a Nike Shoe originates from the Nike Research Lab located at the Nike World Headquarters in Oregon. At the Nike Research Lab, researchers carry out various tests in biomechanics, physiology, sensory in order to customise the product to suit the best interest of the clients. In addition, various factors such as geography, age, gender are also taken into account in order to cater to appeal to the preferences and needs of different segments of the market. For example, according to the Lab, runners in the United States prefer hard surfaces while those in Europe prefer trails and thus this will affect the compositions of the footwear sold in different regions. The latest innovation of the Research Lab, the NikeFree Shoe enhanced overall athletic performance by stimulating the effect of running barefoot with added features which enabled the strengthening of muscles and lowering the risk of injuries.
Athletic shoes were originally designed for sports and other types of physical exercises. Today, they have become a pair of shoes that is used for casual everyday activities because they are so flexible, comfortable and fashionable. Athletic shoes have greater expectations than an ordinary pair of shoes. They were made to increase ones health, for running, and leisure. Athletic shoes can be traced back to the ancient Greek. Runners used to compete barefooted until the Romans mandated them to wear thin-soled sandals. The first “All-purposed athletic shoe” was designed in 1900 and it was made from canvas and featured a rubber rim (Kolecki, 2009).
Walmart is the king of low price competitors, but at what price? It’s customers benefit more than the employees of the world’s largest retailer? This is true and has been so for over 50 years. They must be stopped, they must be forced to pay competitive wages, employees need to stop suffering to save Walmart’s bottom line.
On February 8, 1877, Congress passed the Dawes Act. This was named after its author, and Senator Henry Dawes from Massachusetts. The federal government stopped signing treaties with Native Americans, and replaced that with a new law, giving individual Indians ownership of land that had been tribal property. This showed the treatment of Native Americans as individuals, instead of members of their tribe. It also gave them the chance to be known as U.S citizens. This new policy made its focus on breaking up the reservations and giving the Native Americans land. The entire purpose of the Dawes Act was to protect Indian property rights of Native Americans, but the providing of the law, was fixed in a way that the members of the tribe would be taken
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.
Brand identity is about story telling. Using the latest content that has been published, compromising the five best images that reflect the profile of the brand, a consumer-photo-storyboard can be developed to: Describe the profile of the brand; Identify the main communication and publicity themes; and Critically assess the integrated modes of communication with consumers, including limitations and negative content.
Business strategy is the means by which firm’s plans to achieve its goals and objectives. It can also be termed as organization long-term planning. The strategy covers periods between 3-5 years and sometimes longer. Businesses use two major types of strategy, general or generic and competitive strategies. The overall strategy involves strategies of growth, globalization and retrenchment. The competitive advantage includes low pricing, product and customer differentiation. We will look at the business strategy used by Marks and Spenser (Cole, 1997). The company is a British multinational located at Westminster London and specializes in clothes and luxurious food products.
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.
Over the past years, Wal-Mart has been continuously accused of poor customer service. In 2013, USA Today rated Wal-Mart as the most hated retailer based on their low customer satisfaction score collected by American Customer Satisfaction Index. However, as years have passed, Wal-Mart continues to trend as the biggest retailer with bad customer service (The Huffington Post, 2015).
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.
The aim of this project is to highlight the product by considering the objectives of marketing and communication. Sports shoes are the most common shoes used as regular basis. These kinds of shoes are meant for running, exercise, walking .Sports shoes are commonly known as: running shoes and athletic shoes. Due to a great competition in the market of Sports shoes, Marketers are providing modified sports shoes as per requirements of customers.
Most people in the world gratefully have the chance to make their own choices and decisions every day. One of those choices and decisions that they make is what they are going to put on their feet for the day. Unknowingly the decision of what type of shoe a person wears for a specific day will affect their entire day. There are also many factors that contribute to what type or style of shoes a person buys or wears such as economic status, design, usefulness, and popularity. As of today, there are various types of shoes which are sandals, heels, boots and athletic and casual shoes.