MARKS AND SPENCER AND BP CASE

Marks and Spencer BP Case Study

BP and Marks and Spencer Case Study

Task 1

The major decision made by Stuart Rose is to appoint a separate chief executive, which is corporate governance best practice. They also want a senior independent director appointed to the board. Rose came under fire from shareholders last year when he combined the roles of chairman and chief executive but temporarily appeased shareholders by promising he would be re-elected annually and that M&S plans to hire a non-executive director who had the potential to be made the senior independent director. M&S appointed Du Plessis as a non-executive director and shareholders had hoped he would be appointed senior independent director. Throughout the bumper trading years of the mid 1990s, M&S had retained its position as the UK's leading retailer of lingerie, men's suits and classic styled ladies outerwear. By 1997 it had also emerged as the country's biggest single retailer of women's shoes and women's jeans, underlining the fact that M&S was now a significant player in the market for casual apparel.

The company readily acknowledged that its achievements owed much to long- standing partnerships with its leading suppliers. Over the years, close ties with textile suppliers and manufacturers had enabled M&S to lead the way with innovative new products and fabrics resulting in, amongst other things, the introduction of the non-iron shirt and machine washable silk sweaters.

M&S designed most of its clothes in-house before putting the designs forward to favored manufacturers along with notoriously strict specifications regarding the finished product. The manufacturers provided dedicated facilities for M&S who required suppliers to refrain from bidding for work from other clients. The close partnerships arrangements also alleviated M&S of the need to allocate resources of its own to technological research and development activities.

Instead, the retailer relied on its trusted suppliers to put forward their most recent innovations often allowing M&S exclusive access to technological breakthroughs. Decades of experience had taught the suppliers that their reward for servicing such a demanding client was a culture of continuous improvement within their businesses and the loyalty of M&S through good times and bad. (Kate Rankine 2001 Page 12-13).

In the summer of 1998, Stuart and his team set out a comprehensive strategy for Marks & Spencer which included the decision to sell M&S Money, acquire full control of per una and return £2.3 billion to shareholders. For the core retail business, plans to focus, drive and then broaden the business through recovery and into growth were set out in detail. (Marks and spencer annual report 2008)

Task 2

In July 2003 Vandevelde told Business in the Community's annual conference that, “Companies must internalise the concept of CSR. If there's a CSR ethos at the core, your policies and practices will develop organically.” In 2001 M&S began the process of reinvigorating its approach to CR, spending a year listening to stakeholders, gathering a range of views on what was expected of a responsible retailer in the twenty-first ...