This 9 page paper looks at a case study of Marks and Spencer the well known UK retail chain. The paper answers four questions. First the paper looks at how and why Marks and Spencer's saw profits fall and lost market share in the late 1990's. The paper then undertakes a Porters Five Forces analysis, looks at why this analysis mode was chosen and considers what will be the critical success factors in the future. The bibliography cites 9 sources.
Name of Research Paper File: TS14_TEMarks4.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
of good quality items. However, in 1998 there were changes in the market place which the company failed to respond to. These were not sudden changes, but the company did
not recognise them and had not adapted and changed. However the problems were greater than the environment only, they were also internal. The structure was such that there was a
failure to recognise the changes and an internal culture that believed the company was unassailable, so much so that there was an attitude that believed the company did not require
advertising. If we look at how the company met problems we can see assess the level of the problems and look to the causes. The income saw a decline
over several years. It was ?7,841 million in 1997, ?8,243 million in 1998, ?8,224 million in 1999, ?8,195 in 2000 and ?8,075 in 2001 (Marks and Spencer, 2001, 1999).
The corresponding operating profits were ?1,086.1 million in 1997, ?1,101.8 million in 1998, ?634.6 million in 1999, ?543 million in 2000 and 467 million in 2001(Marks and Spencer, 2001, 1999).
Even looking towards a logical explanation the group profit before tax, exceptional items and a new accounting treatment profits fell by 41% to ?655.7m compared to 1998: ?1,114.8m (Marks and
Spencer, 1999). The trend can be clearly seen. The loss of profit was the main concern and the attempts were to reorganise the
sort internally. It was during this time that we see attempts to regain the lost value by restructuring. When we look at the organisational structure, we can see that this
has changed in response to the needs of a more dynamic environment. A restructuring was aimed creating an organisation that was less bureaucratic and flatter, it is interesting that the