UNDERSTANDING BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

Understanding Business Environment

Understanding Business Environment

Introduction

M&S was founded in 1884 as a stall in an open market in Leeds, the UK. Then known as Marks' Penny Bazaar, it was the household goods, haberdashery, toy, and sheet-music business of Michael Marks, a Jewish refugee from Poland. In 1894, he took Thomas Spencer as a business partner. In 1903, M&S was registered as a private limited company. Although a clothing design department had first been set up in 1938, it was not until after the Second World War that it became fully developed under a leading designer.

Task I: Organizational Purpose

Marks & Spencer is a British national retailer providing apparel and food, one of the world's most profitable retailers.

The secret of success of the company lies in the way it uses some key strategic principles, many of which were already established. M & S provides a selective range of clothing and food products aimed at achieving rapid turnover. The company sells its products under its own brand: St. Michael, offering high quality products at reasonable prices, not lowers. This combination of high quality and reasonable price motivates clients to associate to M & S with the value that they pay, and ability to provide this combination strongly over the years has been a significant goodwill in Britain (Marks and Spencer, 2012, pp. 15-21).

Objectives of Stakeholders

To achieve the combination of high quality and reasonable prices, the company works very closely with its suppliers, many of which have sold a large proportion of their products for generations. The focus on quality is reinforced by the practice of the organization to have its technical staff working in constant contact with suppliers on product design. Providers are well prepared to meet the demands of the firm, knowing that M & S is loyal and as it grows the same thing happens to them. These cost savings are then passed to M & S in the form of prices. In turn, the enterprise transfers part of the savings to the consumer.

Strategies applied by M&S

A clear focus on the customer is vital to the effectiveness of M & S. The attitude is established by senior management. Each manager Lord usually wear M & S clothes and eat their food. Consequently, managers come to understand what customers want and like their products to stay close to customers can improve the quality and design offering (Marks and Spencer, 2010, pp. 3-6). The customer focus is reinforced on the level of stores by the respective managers who make sales monitoring and quickly identify lines that are selling and those that do not. Then transmit information providers who have the ability to quickly modify their production, increasing lines that sell well and reducing those that do not record a good start.

Also important is the commitment of the company to simplify its operating structure and strategic control systems. It has a fairly flat hierarchy. The company employs only two profit margins, one for food and one for ...