Marks & Spencer Performance - Essay Example

Marks & Spencer Group Plc is one of the UK's leading retailers of clothing, foods, homeware and financial services. It holds lading position in the UK for stylish clothing sales. For instance, Marks & Spencer sales during last quarter of 2005/2006 financial year exceed all experts forecasted. Sales volume of shops, working not less than a year, increased for 6,8% for the quarter, ended on the April, 1 while analytics forecast was about 3,2%. Surely, this company website strongly helps to increase sales and to keep the customers loyal. Everybody knows that retail is one of the most competitive economics sector. Shops, marketplaces, boutiques, super- and hypermarkets offer us great choice of different goods. That's why if any company has been taking the top positions for almost 10 years, - it is considered as a great success. Britain hypermarket net Tesco is one of such leaders. This company sails one third of all foodstuffs in the country. And surely, the website must help to attract more and more customers so as to hold the existing. At first glance Tesco and Marks & Spencer have similar sites intended for online shopping. But in fact there is a good deal of differences, which can be disclosed after some working with the necessary parts of these sites. At first, about their purpose. Surely, Tesco has more wide variety of goods, staffs and services. It is aimed to quite different customers, mainly, not very rich and exacting. Marks & Spencer sails more elegant staffs (like clothes, gifts or furniture), so it's aimed to another audience. But surely the same person can do shopping as in Tesco so in Marks & Spencer shops, but in Tesco - each day, while in Marks & Spencer once a week or rarely. Speaking about business models, both company offers, we can see some differences. Tesco set close cooperation with University College London. The scientists offered new methods of gathering, checking, collating, review, storage, access, retrieval and update of statistics information of retail sells. Fed every second by Tesco's 12 million Clubcard holders, the Crucible database could in theory generate about 12 billion pieces of data a year if each cardholder bought just 20 items a week. This information is analyzed very attentively. MIS helps managers to understand what goods are sold better together, to place them accordingly on the counters in supermarkets. Experts, who carry out such analysis for Tesco, insist that the company has one of the biggest customer databases in the world. National brand buildup took place thanks to Tesco owners and managers, who understood British customers wishes, whims and the mechanism of decision making. It became possible after using Management Information System (MIS). In fact company's managers pay much attention to analyzing the customers behavior: what, when and why do they buy and in what way is it possible to lead them to buy more. At first, hypermarket provides constant (season, holiday, single) discounts for that goods and stuffs, which customer buys oftener then others. At the end of a quarter each Clubcard holder gets voucher, equivalent to sum total, he spent in Tesco hypermarkets. Additionally they are rewarded with coupons, which allow discounts to that goods, the customers can enjoy (according to MIS results). Surely, this generated information is based on purchase data analysis. Management Information System (relevant module) defines the consumer goods basket, which can be potentially interested to a customer. During the quarter Tesco sells about 6 million letters with propositions of different discounts to loyal clients. Surely, Marks & Spencer hasn't such a model. But they needn't! Their target audience differs from Tesco's, so as their discount system. They also offers great discounts on their site and a customer can immediately watch it. Let's provide a comparative analysis between two these sites. Each side should contain company information. At Marks & Spencer website this information is represented rather widely: you can see as general information (company history, main figures, different reports etc.), so convenient interface of shop search for each region. The navigation and information usefulness for great variety of visitors are well thought-out. A little disadvantage is the lack of reference to company information section on the main page. Company information at Tesco website is also full enough. Comparing to the first project, navigation method with "announced" blocks is more convenient, as gives visitor an opportunity to understand clearly paragraph contents. It allows to keep user's time and to reserve a positive impression. What about "product information block" Mark & Spencer has some problems here. Announced block is too huge, the disadvantage of which is ineffective using of basic content space, but in its turn this block allows to concentrate customer's attention on goods which is most profitable for sale. Product catalogue: dividing according to subject headings is convenient, each category provides an opportunity to announce goods. Product navigation is well done, as firstly customer is offered visual product presentation. After certain product choosing, customer is offered information and some product's parameters. Tesco's website offers us more effective page space using: detailed product catalogue, key site parts, which are important for a customer, are announced (announce turn on the top of the page), "hot" propositions. Product catalogue: information presentation in chosen category is very convenient, as a customer after choosing some certain category, gets an opportunity to filter great goods amount according to its requirements with the help of accessible navigation (left navigation panel). Registration process is quite similar in both cases. You are to fulfill all necessary fields. Lot's of tips help you to cope with this task. Tesco is a huge supermarket net. Therefore its negotiation scope is larger than Marks & Spencer has. You can make sure of its size and variety just looking at product list. Ordering process is also quite simple as on Tesco, so Marks & Spencer website. There is so called "basket", where you are gathering all wishful goods. But, frankly speaking, Marks and Spencer has more functional selection. For instance, buying shoes, firstly you see a photo. If you like it, you can select all main parameters of model, which will be suitable: size, color, and quantity. Also everything is clear with payment options. The most popular is credit card option. Also Tesco has a wide system of clubcards with different discounts. Delivery options and after sales support also can't differ strongly. You input your address to deliver the purchased goods. Surely you are to leave your additional contacts for after sales support. Tesco has an advanced after sales support thanks to Management Information System and clubcards. Tesco keeps close contacts to all its customers and that's why has such a prolonged success. Firmly, both sites are performed on a high technical level. In fact, online shopping is one of the most difficult types of site organization. We consider technical workers did their best to perform such a reliable shopping process. After some minutes working with them you can easy find any information you wish. Nevertheless Tesco's site is little easy for user. It is explained with a great amount of different references and pictures. You willn't be able to get lost there. Everything is made as simple as possible not to repulse potential buyers and loyal customers. From the aesthetic point of view Marks & Spencer website is a leader unambiguously. There is no great amount of different pictures on the main page. You can see photo and pictures only after choosing certain category of goods. Besides, font size is very important too. Marks & Spencer designers made the fonts neater and the whole site easy-tempered. Tesco site fonts are more crude. The site is aimed to a people who has no time and should find necessary information as quick as possible. They firmly know what CD (for instance) they need, and want to find it quickly. Innovation is a separate topic for discussion. Management Information Systems are becoming increasingly prevalent in the contemporary organization; this is evident in the public sector as much as in the private sector. The substantial requirements of the modern day manager are stretched to include an understanding of the application of new technology to MIS and the basic parameters for information systems, whether the system is manual based or technologically based. Speaking about the exclusiveness of Tesco MIS we should mark new online service for blind customers. Together with Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) Tesco developed a new system using a technology, which converts text to sounds. With it help Tesco goods characteristics can be described on Tesco Direct Web site. Tesco representatives insist this site is the only of such a kind. Before this technology appearing, blind users should use special software, but it was inefficient, especially working with complex multimedia sites. Actually, hypermarket role is not so passive exactly thanks to multifunction MIS. Experts firmly consider that Tesco influence not only the manufacturing but also the "consumer-manufacturer" relationships. Retail cards system presents a unique information gathering methodology. This is an important feed-back for manufacturer. Having paid some money they can gain an access to Tesco database and undertake necessary corrections to their productive and investment programs. As Tesco sells not only foodstuffs, but also much more else (from clothes to financial services), it becomes more essential part in life of tens million of the British. And surely all this becomes possible not without the help of a professional website. Read More