Marketing Strategy in the UK of the Marks and Spencer Company - Essay Example

Organizations today focus on value-creation rather than just short-term profitability. Competition has intensified in the UK fashion industry with the supermarkets entering the fashion segment. The consumers too have become price-conscious and started looking towards the supermarket for discounts and bargains in the fashion sector.

Supermarkets have been successful in extracting value from their existing customer base. Many high street retailers have lost out to supermarkets in the process (Hines, 2001). This has urged the high street retailers to rethink their marketing strategy to remain sustainable. The use of technology, getting the quality and design to match consumers’ desires, needs and tastes, adding value to the services, finding newer ways of reaching the consumer have made fashion marketing for high street retailers a challenge.

Fashion leadership means to be a step ahead of competitors. The UK fashion retailers have been operating in an environment characterized by high levels of market concentration, centralized control and market standardization (Birtwistle & Freathy, 1998). Standardization resulted in a lack of product differentiation and this led some retailers to bring about a shift in their marketing approach. The UK consumer market is divided between those who value product quality and those who value price. Marks & Spencer’s failed to recognize the moves by its competitors and give due cognizance to the needs and demands of the consumers.

Established in 1894, Marks & Spencer’s (M&S) was the leading retailer till the mid-1990s. It started facing a decline towards the end 1990s as it failed to keep up with the market demands. Although M&S initiated its recovery plan, it encountered several constraints and failed to achieve a sizeable market share. M&S is a powerful brand; it is a national institution (Rose, 2007). However, between 1998 and 2000 the company lost more than two-thirds of its market cap.