Strategic analysis of a company and its competitive environment - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages This company is also renowned for exemplary quality value for men’s clothes that have unique and classic models. Notably, M&S competes in the highly competitive market for domestic products and the food selling industry, in comparison with other food-selling retailers, who sell products from fresh groceries and meals, both readily and partly. The company has substantially invested in online marketing to maximize its sales of domestic products. M&S is the foremost company in the Britain that inculcates self-client service. It is advancing in men’s wear and children’s wear market at a high rate. Approximately, each week, the tally of shoppers that visit M&S exceeds twenty million in the totality of all M|&S retail stores. To serve such a huge number of clients in M&S’s six hundred stores in Britain, the affiliation employs a workforce body of seventy five thousand staff globally. The M&S store receives significant competition from its rival stores. The extent of rivalry in the company immensely augmented with entry of similar firms into the ritual of attire; where such companies as the Oasis and Gap provided contemporary fashion, whereas companies such as Matalan and George introduced the same merchandise at low prices. The augmented rivalry that struck M&S in the 1990 epoch was because of their clothing in stock being notably common and their competitors stocking diverse fashion and minimized the competitive advantage of M&S (Collis 2008). This intimidated the identity of their brand that had been an emblem of reliable, quality, and reputation. The rivalry further increased by M&S’s fixed costs such as labor costs, warehousing expenses and a substantial proportion of their costs of operation. Relating to supplier ability, the company chiefly sourced its merchandise from British based suppliers who were ever available (M&S). The suppliers are set to differentiate their merchandise to fit the quality specifications of M&S, which induced their aptitude to stock quality merchandise consistently. Their relations with the suppliers induced a boost to their competitive advantage. The aptitude to differentiate their input affected their ability to source huge volumes of apparel that encouraged their suppliers to experience the benefits of this unique differentiation. The purchasers in the M&S context are sensitive to fashion and sustainability of design. The upper-end consumers place a great value on their favorite attire and are willing to remit premiums on attire that appeals to them. On the low-end of the pyramids, the consumers are also sensitive to price and M&S was on an augmented risk of draining market shares to affiliations that declared low prices for matching products (Harney 2012). The attires on offer from this company also seem to have close substitutes in the market, a fact that compromises their market edge. The consistency in generating fashion and quality that appeal to clients would elicit a brand loyalty among such clients; as evidenced by the company holding a significant clientele before its eventual decline. This loyalty is at stake when a disconnection results in the companies losing touch with dynamic clientele preferences. The industry where M&S functions demands that operators maintain the virtue of inculcating innovations to keep on point with dynamic clientele preferences. This is because of the ease with which rivals can replicate existing designs or produce ...Download file to see next pagesRead More