Enterprise Marketing at Marks and Spencer - Case Study Example

M&S has always been known for its store design and its presentation. The famous marble arch store in London holds its name in the Guinness Book of World Records it's revenue/ square foot. The stores are very well decorated so as to have an appeal for its customers and to have a feel of the modernized store décor. The company’s ability to understand the need to redesign the store helps not only in smoothes and efficient working conditions but also the state of art infrastructure gives the customers a contemporary shopping environment with hospitality.

Since this retailing giant has other competitors like Tesco, Sainsbury, Top shop, so marketing plays a very vital role in keeping up and ahead of the same The ideal way to handle this competition is to seek competitive advantage by doing the same things but doing them differently (Porter M.E. 1966).Apart from the giant media advertising campaign, as explained later, there are many other marketing campaigns of M&S, which keeps in consideration, its social and environmental concerns.Although the 5ps theory of Mintzberg (1991) is a simplistic method for analyzing strategies of the big corporate giant like M&S, there are other theories;For instance, According to Hamel and Prahalad (1996), “the core competencies are the route to future developments and that they define the inventive and transformational aspect of business today that looks for future”.

Here, the decision was to take advantage of the global warming issue, over which the world was veering around. Every single human being could register with it and would like to be involved with the same. The good returns were the bottom line along with distinction. In 2006, it was Look Behind the Label Campaign:This was again commutative to its customers, aimed at telling them fair and ethical methods of doing business by M&S, like using environmentally friendly techniques of production and sourcing and using environmentally friendly and fair trade products.

(BBC News, 30.01.2006). In 2007, The Plan A initiative:This initiative is a five-year plan to increase the environmental sustainability of the M&S business. This well-critised plan has around a hundred commitments to meet the social and environmental challenges. These include, by 2012,  M&S shall become carbon neutral It shall not send waste to landfill Extend sustainable sourcing Giving its employees and customers a healthier lifestyle Ethical trade practices ( Plan A, Official Website)This concern puts M&S as a brand over the other retailers in the minds of customers.

According to the Harvard Business Review, despite the climatic change and fall in profit margins, the plan will be well continued they have “compelling commercial as well as moral reasons behind it”.