Strategy Report – Marks and Spencers
History
In 1884 Michael Marks, a Russian born Polish refugee opened a stall at Leeds Kirkgate
market. Since then, Marks and Spencer was born, opening over 300 stores worldwide and
also being the UKs largest clothing retailer.
In 1999, online shopping was introduced to their website for customers to enjoy in the
comfort of their own home. The internet had just started to become known and more and
more people were staring to use it, so Marks and Spencer took this opportunity and set this
up at the correct time.
In 2000, M&S brought out their healthy Count on us range, for the healthier people on
diets or who were just watching what they ate.
Their 1st Simply food stores opened in Surbiton & Twickenham in 2001, selling nothing
but healthy food, no home furnishing or clothes like the normal stores.
They also launched Per Una a brand of clothing specifically targeting the
fashion-conscious women. Shortly after in January 2001, Blue Harbour was introduced, a
casual wear brand for males.
View form and DB07 another brand of clothing was introduced in 2002, View form for
sportswear and DB07 for children designed in collaboration with David Beckham.
Mission Statement
Marks and Spencers mission statement is broken into 3 parts which include:
Vision – To be the standard against which others are measured
Mission – To make aspirational quality accessible to all and
Values – Quality value, service, innovation and trust.
This mission statement has been kept up since the start of making it; M&S have worked
hard to achieve all these factors. Even though there have been ups and downs during the
years they have tried hard and have kept to their word.
There are many companies which look up to M&S and measure themselves against them,
helping their company to improve and gain more customers.
Marks and Spencers have been known for their quality value, service, innovation and trust
to all their customers who as a company they have stuck to very well. They are continuing
to attract new customers as well as keeping their old ones, offering them new and
improved products all the time.
Objectives
Every year M&S had many objectives which were to be met, they were not really split into
long term and short term but just objectives as a whole for each coming year.
In 2001, they had many objectives but their main ones were attracting new customers,
developing stronger relationships with their suppliers, aim for market leadership and also
