Strategic Management of Marstons Plc Company - Essay Example

?MARSTON’S PLC COMPANY Discussion As a retailing pub as well as a brewing company, Marston operates, manages and leases houses to the public. The company has extensive ventures across the United Kingdom, which comprises bars, pubs, which are leased as well as tenanted. The department that is responsible in brewing is the Marston’s beer company and brews brands such as Banks’, Marston's, Jennings, Ringwood as well as Mansfield. Its marketing practices and strategies are concentrated through its own business outlets as well as other business ventures all over the UK. By using the SWOT analysis (Yelken, et al., 2012, p.267) that was carried out by the Global Data company over the company, we are able to understand the company’s strengths, opportunities, weaknesses as well as threats. The analysis reveals its strengths as extensive operating network and branding offerings. The company however has the major pull back to her operations being the enormous losses it has continuously suffered though it has opportunities to expand in her operations and increase the market share. Moreover, it has other threats, which include high competitive pressures as well as over-stringent regulations. However, there is the need to evaluate the strategic plans that the company has in place in regulating and propelling its operations (Global Data company, 2013, para 1). The company has a well-written strategy concerning the way of developing and exploiting a further competitive front within its pub as well as brewing sector. This strategic vision is based on the already existing positions in the market, its employee’s capabilities as well as skills together with its traditionally designed model of business, which is vertically integrated. Moreover, the company has a business target drive to continuously outperform other players within the market in the different segments of her operations. The company has a well established investment program, which champions its way in selecting business sites, and thus developing newer restaurants. The company claims to undertake thorough analysis before establishing new pub buildings which are modern and appropriate in terms of trading and which offer the customers convenience and value for the services. The company establishes fair, long-lasting and transparent kind of agreements with its licensees which rent their leased and tenanted pubs. It also enjoys long life expertise and experience in operating leases premises. Moreover, this company offers provisions for long-term lease agreements to the licensees and offers pricing mechanisms on free trade as well as free-of-tie options. In order to underpin the operational development within her managed facilities, Marston company operates under a plan called the ‘F-plan’, which refers to food, females, forty/fifty some things and families. The plan was developed and adopted back in 2006, and was meant to have long-term effects. The company also enjoys designing differentiated brew brands purely designed to increase the consumers demand as well as providing greater range of choices to consumers. The company has exploited the niche in the country through well-organized distribution of her products across the entire country from the running five breweries. In financial terms, the company has huge debts, which comprises 90% long-term debts which are secured through its wide distribution of free hold assets in terms of pubs and which fetches low interest rates. However, the current strategy and target is to reduce the net debt by a ratio stipulated by EBITDA to see off at least a five times reduction capacity is realized within three years. This is postulated to be aided by raising return to capital across the entire group’s operations (Marston’s, nd, para 1-5) Strategic management refers to the analysis of major initiatives and programs undertaken by the management of a company on behalf of the entrepreneurs revolving the effective use of resources as well as general performance within the internal as well as external environment of business (Gadiesh and Gilbert, 20012001, p.78-79). In this paper, the intention is to analyze the strategies postulated by the Marston’s PLC Company amid the outcome of the SWOT analysis as outlined above. Our analysis will revolve around four schools or perspective approaches, which include procession, classical, Systemic and evolutionary schools of perspectives. Through the classical school or approach, we conduct a situational analysis of the organization and analyze the strategies developed as outlined above (Hartman, nd, p. 2). It is therefore clear that the company enjoys internal strengths through the strategic organization, employees’ experiences as well as skills and the overall wide coverage of the business within the country. Moreover, the company enjoys extensive operating network and extensive branding offerings as its strengths alongside expanding her operations and increasing share for the market segment it serves. The company has also strategically set three years over which it intends to cut down its operational debts besides the other plans to persistently dominate the market over its competitors through higher differentiation of products as well as through extending to newer business fronts. The company’s basis of competition has been painted to be riding on an advantage through higher product differentiation, lower cost of operations due to the wide network of coverage as well as the already adopted segmentation of the market within the country. In terms of strategic management, the company, Marston’s PLC Company, adopts procedural framework to solve and address conflicts that would arise during the processes of operations and which involves other stakeholders in the industry such as the leasers as well as the customers. Different perspectives are brought into context while deliberating and solving the conflicts, which arise in the process of the company operations (Porter, nd, p 8-9). Through evolutionary method (Rakotobe-Joel et al., 2002, p. 337-338), the strategic management entails breaking down the company through small developmental stages to overcome the main challenge that companies and business organizations face in the event of growth and complexity. Through systemic approach, the company engages in social sensitization mechanisms as well as through taking resources from the society and giving back to the society (Rowe, 2008, p. 17-22). The overall strategy of the company as outlined above is very relevant and suitable because it spells out on the missions of the company. Besides, the strategy postulation achieves sense economically in addition to reflecting strong capabilities of the company to dominate the market segment in which it has strong influence and to explore new grounds. The analysis of the company’s opportunities, strengths, threats as well as weaknesses outlines the capability of the company to run effectively within the business environment. The company’s strategies are feasible (Reilly and Millikin, 1996, p. 1-3) because it has a wide capital framework; it has an extensive market covering the entire country and enjoys the privileges of qualified personnel in skills and experience. The losses would serve to hinder forecasting as well as the analysis of cash flow. The shareholders, customers as well as the employee’s expectations concerning financial as well as non-financial outcomes reveal the acceptability level of a specific company. Through the above analysis, the company has continuously enjoyed higher acceptability levels as indicated by the expansionary measures adopted by the company. However, with the current strategic formulation, there still lacks concrete basis on which to affirm its acceptability owing to the fact that there are still some uncertainties in the future. The dynamics in the evolution of the company poses the challenge of mapping the stakeholders involved in the operations of the company who include the suppliers, customers, management as well as the employees. However, through the analysis of the SWOT framework to the company, it is clearly observable that the company has potential to expand and raise its strategic competitiveness within the industry. However, through learning from the past where the company continuously expanded in terms of facilities and coverage of customers while it still persistently suffered losses, there is need for a new dimension in operations of the company to be sought. I strongly believe that it is the high time the company focuses on dealing with the continued debt crises before commencing on expansionary missions. Higher operating costs through the extensive operations network would be the main cause of the persistent debt and as such, cutting on additional costs would be instrumental in realizing the strategic goal of cutting on the losses within three years. Referencing List Gadiesh A. and Gilbert J., 2001. Frontline Action. Harvard: Havard Business School Publishing Corporation. Global Data company. 2013. Marston’s PLC MARS-Financial and strategic SWOT Analysis Review. [online] Available at: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/70204187/Marstons-PLC-%28MARS%29---Financial-and-Strategic-SWOT-Analysis-Review [Accessed 4 July 2013]. Hartman S. W., nd. Management Theory. [Online]Available at: < http://www.aom-iaom.org/article_hartman.pdf> [Accessed 7 July 2013]. Marston’s. nd. our strategy. [online] Available at: [Accessed 4 July 2013]. Porter M. E. nd. Chapter 1: What Is Strategy? [Online] Available at: (Accessed 4 July 2013) Rakotobe-Joel et al,.2002. A Structural and Evolutionary Approach to Change Management.Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory, 8, pp. 337–364 Reilly M. D. and Millikin N. L. 1996.Starting a Small Business: The Feasibility Analysis.Montguide, Human Resource Development. Available at: (Accessed 4 July 2013) Rowe J. 2008. Studying strategy. A starting point for our thinking. [online] Available at: (Accessed 4 July 2013) Yelken et al., 2012. The strategic planning (swot) analysis outcomes and suggestions according to the students and the lecturers within the distance education system. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education-TOJDE, 13(2) , p. 267-276 Read More