Preparing an E-Business Strategy

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MARKS & SPENCER E-BUSINESS STRATEGY
NATURE OF BUSINESS

Marks & Spencer is a British retail chain with over 800 stores across UK and 41 territories overseas, employing over 76,000 people. M&S sells high quality, great value clothing and home products and outstanding quality food. M&S is number one provider of womenswear in the UK, and is rapidly growing its market share in menswear, kidswear, and home. Overall, clothing and homeware sales account for 49% of the business. The remaining 51% is business of selling food, where M&S sells everything from fresh produce to partly-prepared meals and ready to eat meals.

SEGMENT MARKET

M&S constantly strives to expand its global footprint. As of 2010, the company had 327 stores in 41 territories with an addition of 34 new stores in 2009/10. The sales for the international business grew by 5.7% accounting for 10.2% of total Group revenues. The company has been focusing on developing partnership in India and growing its Central and Eastern European business. There are many competitors in the international market and in order to differentiate itself M&S has adopted a distinct positioning strategy.

If M&S's initial years are to be looked back at, the company was tied to a generalized view of market due to lack of proper segmentation. In that time segmentation was not a necessity as people has more or less similar requirements and there were very few competitors. However, as the situation of the market changed, strong competitors emerged and requirements of customers also changed. M&S failure to address this change by segmenting markets and differentiating products resulted in shifting of customer's interest to other brands which led to erosion of M&S market share.

CORPORATE STRATEGY

Marks & Spencer's corporate objectives are incorporated in its mission statement which is:
Making ...