M&s Case Study

Content and Overview.

M&S is a UK based company formed in 1884 dealing in a verity of  products ranging from clothing, home accessories, beauty to food. It is a market leader in Menswear,woneswear and lingire. It is a company  with more than 1000 stores across the globe employing about 85.,813 employees. M&S is operating in 54 territories  with about 455 stores around the world of which operations in 3 new territories have just been set up.It has a total of 798 stores in the UK selling general merchandise and food of which 32 have been opened recently.

The two major divisions of the company as per the finacial report are General Merchandising and Food. As per the financial report of 2014 the Food dvision of the company has  accounted for 55% of the total sales turnover surpassing the General Merchandising division. The revenue from the Food diviosn has been the major source of income in UK for the company  this finacial year totaling to a whooping 5.1 billion with a growth of 4.2% comapred to the previous year, whereas the reveue from the Genreal Merchandise divison was 4.1 Billion and at par with the previous year. This shows that there is lot of potential in the Food division of the company and it has been able to capture a significant market share in the presence of dominant players like Tesco and Sainsbury’s.

The company has even developed a online trading website named M&S.com due to the growing need of e-commerce in the business world today. The response from the online trading site has been quite impressive as the company has been able to carry out significant  sales with a 22.8% increase totaling to an amazing 800.1m pounds across the globe. The  number of viewers visting the company site have also increased by 7.8% to 5.5m which shows that the online busniess idea of the company is very succesful and is ahead of the market as per the financial report.

The company has always been voted as the most trusted brand in UK since its first penny markets in Leeds 130 yrs ago. It considers customer statisfaction as a key for the suceess of the business and has developed CIU dedicated to the needs of the customers, Further more, the company  has always believed in innovation which makes their products stand out giving a competitive advantage  over their competitiors.

The company despite the slow down in market place was able to do better by providing more promotions than previous year during the christman time, as a result there was an increased in the footfall of customers to their stores which resulted in increased sales . It was seen that when it came to clothing the customers spent more on the better and best ranges offered by the company showing that quality, style and newness to the range was key.

The M&S food was a huge succes as the company could offer resturant like food at valuable prices with it’s dine in deals without compromising on quality.

The company with its partners such as Vouge, GQ  and it’s leading campaings have been able to advertise and market their brand extensively well. Leading ladies camapign was a huge success as the brand was able to capture a market for older women clothing through its new and innovative clothing design and by widespread advertisment  through celebs like Emma Thompson being a part of the campaign.The company has just opened a 35000sq ft.  store in November in Bandra Mumbai with an exclusive collection of mens suits  which shows that the company is significantly  investing in its operations overseas.

Financial Analysis.

The financial performance of the company can be evaluated using accounting ratios and Key Performance Indicators. The most important of which is the sales of the company , which results to 10.3b in 2014 ,a 2.7% increase than the last year which shows that the company is able attract customers and there is an increasing demand for the brands products. There has been a marked growth in the company’s food division and e-commerce resulting in a major part of the revenue of the company in this financial year.