Marks and Spencer Hbr free essay help Case Study homework help

Marks and Spencer case analysis Mark and Spencer should change its business strategy in order to support to the need of customers in each country. Although Mark and Spencer succeeded in the UK market, it seemed not to succeed in capturing large market shares in the international market. The company can develop its competitive advantage from its existing resources and capabilities, and use them as a core competency to compete with competitors in the future. Mark and Spencer should use its strong basic advantages such as human resources and intangible and tangible resources in the overseas market.First of all, since employees are people who directly interact with customers, human resources is a key factor for retail stores. Mark and Spencer spent 16.

2 million on the welfare of its employees and allocated nearly 10% of store space to employees. The company also provided practical support for individual initiatives, including material for foreign language training and guidance to indentify and improve personal weaknesses. Furthermore, the company regularly promoted employees rather than hiring new employees.These policies could increase good environment in the workplace and employees’ loyalty and trust. Customers could also receive good services for their employees as well. In the competitive market, offering good services is one the more effective strategies for many companies to keep their customers with them. So I believe that the company could use this as a competitive advantage in when expending to new overseas markets.

Brand reputation and recognition were other basic resources of Mark and Spencer’s competitive advantage.The company’s St Michael had been in the retail market for many years. Most customers believe in a high quality of the company’s products at reasonable prices which were the selling points for company since it’s first operated in 1884. Furthermore, instead of spending huge amounts of advertising money, the company mainly relied on use the word of mouth strategy to tell their story. This could reduce a lot of the advertising costs in the global market. Mark and Spencer could use its basic resource to the global market not only ntangible resource but also tangible resource such as information technology systems. Information technology systems could help the company track its stock in inventory and could reduce operating costs by reducing the products that did not respond well to the market.

Customers would purchase clothing or food that what they really want from the company. Furthermore, in the retail store industry, inventory management is another key factor that Mark and Spencer can use to create competitive advantage. Operating costs will increase if the company carries too much inventory.The company could use that money in another business activities. So Mark and Spencer could use its advance information technology systems to create competitive advantages in both the clothing and food industries. Consequently, Mark and Spencer should deeply understand the foreign market. The strategy the company used in the UK might not suitable with another market.

However, the company should use its internal resources and capabilities to increate market share and to create competitive advantage in the global market in the future.