Identify Marks and Spencers market position and determine why they nearly collapsed :: essays research papers

Identify Marks and Spencers market position and determine why they nearly collapsed Introduction Marks & Spencer is one of the UK's foremost retailers of clothing, foods, homeware and financial services, boasting a weekly customer base of 10 million in over 300 UK stores. Marks & Spencer operate in 30 countries worldwide, and has a group turnover in excess of  £8 billion. It has specific values, missions and visions. It’s main vision is ‘to be the standard against which all others are measured’, it’s main mission is ‘to make aspirational quality accessible to all’, and it’s main values are quality, service, innovation and trust. (www.marksandspencer.co.uk). By the end of 1998 though, there was evidence of a crisis occurring. Customers and media pulled together to assist senior management partake in an internal audit to identify the problems and see if they could come to a solution. The purpose of this assignment is to construct a SWOT analysis, highlighting each of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that were highlighted in the internal audit. The SWOT analysis is contained within the marketing plan and is the third step in the marketing planning process, coming after the Marketing audit and before any assumptions. (Joisce, Ted (2002), Marketing Planning Lecture Notes – 14/10/02, Mission, Objectives, Strategy, Tactics) Conclusions will be drawn from the SWOT analysis, which will attempt to review the company’s position and identify the marketing priorities. Also, Marks & Spencer’s recent marketing activities will be critically analysed in order to ascertain what improvements have been made since 1998. This assignment will attempt to determine why Marks & Spencer nearly collapsed and what they have achieved in terms of success and failure as part of their recovery programme. Strategic wear-out occurs when an organisation no longer meets customer needs and the pursued strategy is surpassed by competitors. (Drummond and Ensor, Strategic Marketing Management, p. 149, Butterworth Heinemann) Marks & Spencer is a perfect example of a company that had a successful strategy but failed to adapt to the changing environment and have therefore suffered from ‘strategic wear-out.’ Evidence to support this quote comes in the form of Marks and Spencer sending very little on marketing communications and being overtaken by their competitors, but this will be explained later in the assignment. As Figure 2 shows, strategic wear-out refers to the lack of fit between an organizations strategy and the needs of the marketplace. This was clearly evident with Marks and Spencer when they became complacent about their customer service standards and thought their customers understood what Marks and Spencer stood for without marketing when all along they didn’t.