Marks and Spencer, Method of Operation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Marks and Spencer, Method of Operation - Essay Example It is currently an international company with a whopping over 840 stores in more than 30 countries in the world. This joint venture was not without its challenges especially with its growth and expansion to various other countries other than Britain. It has experienced periods of financial crisis owing to poor sales to a point where they had to sell some of their stores off to other parties among other tough decisions they have been made to make to save the company from crumbling. Nevertheless, they have also had periods of high sales which in turn translated into great profitability and expansion. Their have adopted various strategies in an attempt to maintain and expand their customer base as both external and internal forces are threatening the very core of this business with a history of a long time in operation. Part of these strategies includes the adoption of new marketing strategies that are powerful enough to retain their customers and attract more customers to themselves. Notable also is the expansion of the products they sell where in addition to the traditional engagement in the sale of cloth and food, recent additions to the products base include technological products as well as furniture and homewares. Following is a PEST analysis of the company that will undertake to elaborate the current economic standing of this company and the prospects that are available to it. Marks a Political factors Marks and Spencer have adopted an international inclination towards the attracting of customers to the purchasing of their products. This means that the political factors that affecting their businesses depends on the political environment found in the countries where their stores are based for example the stores based in Britain will operate under the political environment found in Britain while those based in china will operate under china's political environment. Considering that the greatest number of the Marks and Spencer stores (600 out of the approximately 840 in the world) are based in Britain, then I will undertake the pest analysis of the Marks and Spencer stores based in Britain. The political environment in Britain is stable in the sense that Britain is relatively peaceful with no major identified or reported cases of violence making the establishment, growth and expansion of business units realistic and favourable. This contributed greatly towards the establishment and the eventual success of the Marks and Spencer stores as they were offered the chance to grow. It should however be noted that the period of the Second World War gave the growth of this business unit enough challenge. The taxing policy in Britain is relatively low thus allowing for a conducive environment for the establishment and maintenance of a business unit since the business units are hardly suppressed by overtaxing. Adoption of friendly taxing policies is a real plus in the development of business enterprises (Bevan 2001 pp 56-58). Britain is a member of a number of trade unions and other organizations with whom they carry out trade. It is a member of the European Union therefore trades under minimal restrictions with all the other members of this union. This is good for the development of international trade for the business units found in the geographical area covered by it (Richardson 2002p42). At the same time, Britain has developed diplomatic relationships with a great number of nations globally- a stint that makes her