Introduction and Background

This assignment is a study of principles of Strategic marketing management by considering Marks and Spencer Clothing business. In this assignment the strategic marketing management process has been discussed and the marketing planning process has been applied to assess the possible Strategic marketing strategies to improve the business of Clothing of Marks and Spencer. Here, I have studied the External and the Internal environment of the Marks and Spencer with the help of available market data and have done Marketing audit with the help of different techniques and analysis Models.

Marks and Spencer is one of the leading retailers of UK, with over every 21 million people visiting Stores every week. Company offers high quality, stylish, great value home and clothing products. M&S employs around 75,000 people and have above 600 stores in UK and expanding number of stores worldwide.

M&S is number one provider of women’s wear and lingerie in the UK, and are having growing market share in menswear, kids wear and home, due in part to their growing online business. Overall, company’s clothing and home ware sales account for 49% of the business.

Role of strategic marketing in Marks and Spencer

Strategic marketing focuses on how to develop competitive advantage through the drivers of shareholder value. Delivering value to your business requires insight into your changing marketplace and decisions regarding how to match your organization’s distinctive capabilities with promising value opportunities. Being able to do this is the key for many marketers to increase their influence in the organization. (By Fundamentals of Strategic Marketing)

Without a strategic marketing plan, organizations can waste resources, miss opportunities or, in a worst case, waste resources, miss opportunities or, in a worst case scenario threaten their own survival. Stepwise action makes Marks and Spencer a productive sector. It is an exciting growing brand that provides consumers with value for money in fashion items. The company has an effective supply chain that combines manufacturing of different countries like Bangladesh, India m china and Turkey and some parts of Europe. Like other business Marks and Spencer’s main objective is to be a profitable and sustainable but in doing that it is always trying to satisfy customers keep themselves responsible to the customers. The strategic marketing of Marks and Spencer has enabled them to capture confidence of customers in the brand that helps reducing the risk of business (Hawes & Crittenden, 1984).

In an organization which is as large and strong as Marks and Spencer, a competitive devised strategic marketing is highly required. As this manufacturing company outsource it projects, it has many responsibilities to execute without any dilemma in between. As the workforce of Marks and Spencer is exclusively huge, the employees are to be managed and trained

accordingly. There are guidelines set which are to be observed by the employees and other stakeholders. It is the basis of continued success in highly competitive markets. Sustainability is one of the features of Marks and Spencer all due to the strategic marketing strategy is has dissolved in its business practices. The company does add cost in some scenarios only to fulfil its promises and commitments made to its customers. As a result brand loyalty bond gets stronger and they are able to expand more and create more demand of their garments in the market (Hawes & Crittenden, 1984).

Developing a marketing strategy

The External Marketing Environment and the Marketing Audit

A marketing audit is a structured review of organisation’s current marketing activities. It is a fundamental part of the marketing planning process. Marketing audit enables oragnisations to anlayse its current performance as well as past performance which helps the organisation to identify the next steps forward. As the business environment is constantly changing, the marketing audit should be used as a reference tool, with constant updates reflecting changes in the external environment and organisation’s own internal business experiences.

Philip Kotler defined marketing audit as a comprehensive, systematic, independent and periodic examination of activities and resources in order to find problem areas and opportunities and to recommend a plan of action. Marketing audit can help organisation to refine its business processes and improve its productivity and profitability. Marketing audit has been broadly categorized into internal audit and External Audit. There are various tools and methods available to carry out these audits.

The external environment of an organisation can be broadly categorized into:

Economic environment (consisting of political, economic, social / cultural, technological, environmental and legal changes) Competitive environment(threat of new competitors/new entrants to the business and

how could it threaten the current market share) The market environment (Total market size growth and trends, products, prices,

physical distribution channels, industry practices.

Various tools are available, each one providing a means of structuring analysis, like STEEPLE, PESTLE and PEST analysis. We will be using PEST analysis, to assess the external environment impacting the business of Marks and Spencer.

3.1 External Marketing Audit

To conduct the external audit of the M&S, I have considered the available market data through various sources which can be a major deciding factor while planning the strategic planning decisions. Here, I have used PEST and the Porter’s five forces analysis, to analyse and evaluate the external environment.

PEST Analysis

PEST Analysis stands for Political, Social, Economic and Technological analysis and provides a framework of external environmental factors influencing the organization’s strategies.

Table: PEST Analysis

Political 1. In 2010, Coalition of Conservative and liberal democrat party under the leadership of David Cameron came into power.

2. To fight the recession, Government has undertaken massive job cuts in public sector and various cuts in funds given to different sectors of economy.

3. EU is negotiating Free trade agreement with India.

4. Chinese and Indian economies have performed much better and had less impact of recession.

5. Policies of Increase in tuition fees of students and proposals to cut down the immigration of students from non Europe countries will impact the young consumers segment.

Economy 1. UK suffered its worst recession in 2009 and upward in over 60 years.

2. Consumer expenditure declined by 0.9% in 2012.

3. The economy of the UK is among least dependent in Europe of exports of goods, thus less vulnerable to the risk of external shocks from falling global demands.

4. Devaluation of UK sterling in 2011 – 2012 has given competitive edge to the exporters.

6. Youth unemployment (18-24-year-olds) has risen from 17.2% in Q2 2012, compared to 12.5% in the same period of 2011.

7.Rising fuel and food prizes are squeezing the disposable incomeSocial 1. UK has a multicultural model containing different races, ethnics and

religions.

2. UK is among one of the most popular countries for immigration. Between 1998 and 2008, 1.5 million people were added to the population, two third of them are from Asia and Africa.

3. Due to ongoing recession and government’s policies of job cuts in public sector unemployment has increased.

4. People prefer cheaper clothing’s now, due to decrease in the income sources.

5. Due to recession, the adults have cut down their expenses and the maximum is on the clothing.

Technological 1. Retailing methods are becoming more dependent on online shopping

through internet.

2. Online market for fashion is extremely dynamic and so various companies are setting up online shops, for eg. Tesco (clothingattesco.com), Asda (George).

3.There are different modes of payment now :Online banking, Direct debit cards, Credit cards

4. The management and services of the company are undertaken on IT systems, which are maintained on secured servers at distant location.

Porter’s Five Forces

Porter’s five forces model helps the organisation to set a realistic objectives by assessing the external influences on the firm’s behavior. Porter explains that there are five forces inherent in a market, which will jointly determine the intensity of competition and profitability of M&S.

Diagram: Porter’s five forces

Table: Porters five forces

Threat of new Entrants Clothing is today one of the highly competitive industry. In the recession, the clothing sector has been hit maximum. There are already well established players present in the market, so it will be very difficult to sustain the competition. Consumers have become price and quality conscious due to economic turmoil, so it will not be easy to provide the clothing at lower prices and

maintain profits as well for new entrant. So, in the current economic scenario, there’s a low threat of new entrants.

Bargaining power of Buyers Due to highly competitive market, buyers today have various available options for marketing. They hold the highest bargaining power. The companies are devising there sales policies as per the buyers marketing trends and the social factors affecting the buyers.

Threat of Substitute Products or Services Clothing is necessity. There’s no substitute for clothing .It can only gets advanced in near future with the use of highly quality textiles and the machines. But there is almost no threat perception of substitute products or services.

Bargaining power of suppliers The developing countries are the major suppliers of clothing industry. Textile industry is one of the major parts of revenue for these countries. For country like Bangladesh, textile industry constitutes for 80% of total export and this industry has highest employment numbers. There are other countries as well, like Pakistan, India, china, Cambodia, Haiti who has high stake in the textile industry and this in turn reduces the bargaining power of suppliers, as there are number of suppliers fighting which each other to increase their market share, which in turn leaves them with low bargaining powers.

Rivalry Among Existing competitors The clothing industry is one of the highly competitive industries. There are number of well established players present in the market and they keep trying to increase their market share through different sales and pricing techniques. In the current economic scenario, market has become more competitive which has resulted into aggressive pricing strategy. The companies offering low prices have started gaining the momentum.

Summary of the external Audit

The economic recession has not only made the clothing market more competitive but has also exerted pressure through various other factors to change the market trends and the social factors affecting the economy. Because of recession, the government policies are resulting into more job losses. There’s a sharp increase in unemployment and the inflation is steadily moving up. All these factors have resulted in cut down of expenses by the consumers and clothing is hit maximum. As discussed under the PEST analysis, the Political, Social and Economical factors have made the clothing business very challenging. While the Porter’s five forces further strengthened this notion by assessing the competition .As shown in figure 3,companies like Marks and Spencer has been able to increase their momentum of sales because of their pricing, which in turn making the market more competitive in terms of pricing .

Internal Marketing Audit

Internal marketing audit is a process of evaluating and assessing the internal factors of the organisation. It not only helps to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation but also determines its competitive advantages. Internal audit focuses on some of the key areas which includes: current state of new product development ,evaluation of profitability of product portfolio, effectiveness of customer relationship management, effectiveness of customer facing processes, effectiveness and efficiency of distribution and finances are to name a few. Here, we have assessed the product life cycle and the product portfolio through PLC and BCG matrix. We have also used Porter’s value chain analysis to audit the internal environment of the organization, because of difficulty in finding the accurate data; we have made assumptions as well. And in the end we have done the SWOT analysis to determine the strength, weakness, opportunity and threats.

Michael E. Porter’s Value Chain Analysis

Michael Porter used ‘Value chain’ term in his book ‘’Competitive Advantage: Creating and sustaining superior Performance’’ (1985).Value chain analysis basically determines the activities within and around an organization, and relates them to an analysis of the competitive strength of the organization. In his value chain analysis, Porter has considered the organisation’s activities in tow segments: Support activities and Primary activities. Primary activities are directly related with the creation and delivery of goods or services. It can be grouped in five main areas: Inbound Logistics, Operations, outbound Logistics, Marketing & Sales and Services. These Primary activities are connected with the Support activities to improve the efficiency of work. The four main areas of Support activities are: Infrastructure, Human Resource Management, Technology Development and Procurement.

Diagram: The model of Porter’s Value Chain Analysis is as follows:

Source: www.12manage.com

Application of Porter’s Value Chain Analysis on Marks & Spencer

Primary Activities

Inbound Logistics: M&S has outsourced its inbound activities to third party vendor. The vendor takes care of all the activities involved in transporting the shipments to various stores.

Operations: Marks and Spencer has huge employee strength. Company regularly invests on the employee’s development and training activities. Company has been investing to improve its infrastructure and the stores to further improve the company operations.

Outbound Logistics: Marks and Spencer has not focused much on the distribution of merchandise to the consumers. They have not formulated policy for the outbound logistics and this is a department, where company should focus to improve the customer services.

Marketing & Sales: M&S has always run advertisements in newspapers and magazines. It is highly aggressive in marketing. M&S has achieved a big consumer base and name because of its marketing and sales policies. They have heavily invested on print media and online advertisements.

Service: Company has 76,000 employees at it’s around 700 stores in UK and they have been able to maintain its service standards to a level. M&S maintains the quality of staff and the services it provides to the customers.

Support Activities

Procurement: The fundamental principle of M&S procurement policy is flexibility and integrity. Company has its list of preferred contractors to carry out the construction project. They assess the suppliers routinely for the quality of the products and condition of the employees engaged in the work.

Human Resource and Management: As per the 2010 report, M&S employs 76000 people. M&S has one of the lowest turnover rates in UK retail 14%.Around 46% of the employees are with M&S from past five years and 27% employees for more than 10 years. They offer competitive salaries, retirement plans in-store and online discounts, share save options and bonuses. M&S provides regular training to its employees and gives them opportunities for future career developments. Company also organizes regular seminars for its employees to help them plan their finances and explain the pay structure.

Infrastructure: M&S has around 600 stores in UK and 300 stores worldwide operating in 40 territories.

Technology Development: M&S has incorporated latest technologies to improve its business. It is one of the highly environment friendly organisation. As per the reports published in year 2010,by incorporating various technologies and techniques they have cut down their carbon emission by 8% and have reduced the waste send to landfill by 33%.Through their innovative techniques and technologies they have managed to achieve 19% energy efficiency at all their stores this year.

Figure 1: Markets share

SummaryMarks & Spencer Plc: Competitive Position 2012

Subsector Share RankMen’s outerwear 8.34% 1Women’s outerwear 9.61 1Children’s wear 4.75% 4Clothing accessories 2.71% 4Underwear and nightwear 19.4% 1Socks, stockings and tights 9.6% 1

Source:Euro monitor International

Product Life Cycle Model

Product life cycle model helps to analyze the maturity stages of products and industries. This term was used for the first time by Theodore Levitt in 1965.Product life cycle model has significant impact on the oragnisations strategies and performances. It identifies the different stages affecting the sales of product from the time of introduction till retirement.

Source: www.12manage.com

Applying the Product Life Cycle Analysis model to the Marks and Spencer’s Clothing business, we can conclude that the Clothing business is still in the growth stage. Referring to the available data in figure 1, the Clothing Business is further segregated in different sub sectors: Men’s outerwear, Women’s outerwear, children’s wear, clothing accessories, underwear and nightwear and socks, stockings and tights. Though many of these subsectors are leading in the market but they still have lots of scope to grow. For example men’s outerwear was no 1, in the market but it still had market share of only 8.34%. While if we see the other subsectors, they are still competiting with other companies to gain the number one position like children’s wear and clothing accessories which has market share of less than 5% for the former and less than 3% for the later.

Boston Consulting Group Matrix

Boston consulting group matrix was created by Bruce Henderson for the Boston Consulting Group in 1968 to help organisations to analyse their product line. It helps the company to allocate resources and is used as an analytical tool in product management and portfolio analysis. Boston Consulting Group matrix has two dimensions: Market share and Market growth. This method tells that bigger the market share is or the fastest the market growth of product is the better it is for the organisation.

Source: www.mindtools.com

As seen in the figure 1, Underwear and nightwear products have a high market share of 19.4% and comfortable enjoys number one slot in its segments. The profits and cash generations from this product is quite high and it does not need high investment. While, Men’s outerwear, Women’s outerwear and Socks, stockings and tights have around 9% of market share but they are leading the segment and have shown good market growth. But the products Children’s wear and clothing accessories have very low market share and they are at fourth spot.

Placing these products into BCG matrix, the Marks and Spencer’s Product portfolio is as follows:

Cash Cows: Underwear and nightwear products, as these enjoy high market share and is bringing high revenues to the organisation without any requirement of extra investment.

Stars: Men’ outerwear, Women’s outerwear and Socks, Stockings and tights are the star products of the company, as they are leading the segment with a promising market growth rate.

Dogs: Children’s Wear and Clothing accessories have low market share and have been poor performers with respect to other products of M&S’s portfolio.

After Conducting the PEST Analysis, And Porter’s five forces we analyzed the external environment, which can impact the business of the Marks and Spencer. While by using the Porter’s value chain model we evaluated the internal environment.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis is a tool for auditing an organisation and its environment. It helps to determine the core strengths of the organisation and the weaknesses it has which needs to be focused upon .It is the first stage of planning and helps the management to focus on the key areas. The SWOT stands for: Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats. The Strength and weakness of the organisation are determined by the internal audit while the threats and opportunities are related with the external environment.

Strengths Weakness1. Marks and Spencer date back to 1884.It is a brand name in UK. They provide excellent and quality products.

2. Marks & Spencer continues to be a leading retailer of clothing and footwear in the UK.

3. M&S has a diversified business ranging from Clothing Merchandise to Foods Retail.

4. M&S has maintained growth in the new online business of clothing and is one of the fastest growing businesses.

5. M&S has employee strength of around 76,000 and has around 700 stores in UK and 300 stores worldwide at 40 different locations giving it an international brand name. M&S has healthy relationship with its employees and it pays competitive salaries as per the market.

6. Marks and Spencer regularly updates and upgrades its technologies to keep sync with the current technologies.

7. M&S is highly environment friendly and has heavily invested in achieving zero carbon emission.

8. Marks and Spencer has presences in almost every part of UK and they have strong Supply chain management services.

1. Marks and Spencer has failed to compete with the companies providing goods at lower rates.

2. M&S has not been able to re-engineer its policies in the economic turmoil, leading to loss in market share.

3. They have failed to keep up with the fashion trends of the market.

4. Company has failed to attract young customers.

5.Marketing strategy has not done to change the image of Marks and Spencer, which is perceived as Brand for Mature customers between the age group of 35 -45.

Opportunity Threat

1. The online marketing business has a great potential of growth and M&S need to tap this opportunity.

2. Current recession has presented M&S’s management a situation to rethink on its marketing and sales strategy and formulate new strategies to cope up with the future economic issues.

3. Marks and Spencer should venture into alliances and collaborations with the company’s of developing markets to tap the opportunities available there.

4.India,China and brazil had not serious impact of recession, so M&S should start focusing on these countries as these are growing economies and also account for biggest customer base, where company has less presence

1. Companies like Marks and Spencer and Asda, who are providing goods at cheaper rate, are eating the market share of Marks and Spencer.

2. Being a big retail company, it will be very difficult to done strategic changes at organizational levels in terms of pricing, which can further reduce the profit margin.

3. The increasing inflation in the developing countries and the improvement in the living standards have led to possibility of increase in wages of workers working for suppliers.

4. Increase in fuel cost may further lead to decrease in the operating costs.

5. Expansion into international has not been very successful for M&S.

6. Clothing industry is mature and market is still not saturated, while the customers are continuously looking for new fashionable trends.

Summary of Internal Audit

The clothing industry is Mature but not yet saturated. And so in the PLC analysis, the product has been put in the Growth stage. The Marks and Spencer is a leading retailer and because of its brand name and established infrastructure. The area where they need to focus more on is to follow the fashion trends in more aggressive manner and devise strategic marketing and sales technique to achieve the set objectives.

Possible Strategic Marketing Options

Strategy Development Model (Ansoff matrix)

Igor Ansoff created the Product/Market diagram in 1957 as a technique to classify the options for business expansion. Ansoff matrix helps oragnisations in analysing and planning the marketing strategies to meet the customer needs and expectations. It allows management to consider strategies to expand the business via current and/or new products, in current and/or new markets - there are four possible product/market combinations. This matrix helps oragnisations decide what course of action should be taken in given current performance.

Source: www.anythingresearch.com

Following the current economic scenario, the strategies which should be undertaken by Marks and Spencer management to outline the alternative methods to achieve the growth are:

Market Penetration: Focusing on the existing products in the existing market and consolidating its sales and growth within the present market. The various penetration strategies which should be considered are:

- Attract the new customers who are occasional buyers and are just ‘testing waters’. These customers should be targeted.

- Attacking Competitors Sales, as clothing market is mature and highly competitive. To increase the sales, company will have to target the competitor’s customers. This strategy can be achieved by adjustment of marketing mix, by altering one or more elements like, price or promotion techniques.

- Increasing the consumption by current Customers, this strategy can be achieved by devising some policy to give special benefits and discounts to the regular customers.

Market Development: Marks and Spencer is already present in the global market. It has around 300 stores in 40 different locations. By locating new markets where the customers can have chose from the existing products of the company. M&S cannot focus only on one market to survive in the business. it will have to look for new regions and markets where it can sell its existing products to further consolidate its position in the market.

Diversification: M&S needs to diversify its business strategies by entering into new markets with new products. The new products should be as per the local market it has entered to do the business. Company can’t survive in new market by focusing only on its existing products. It needs to customize and develop new products as per the requirements of the new customers. For example when McDonalds entered into developing countries it customized its burgers as per the local tastes. It wasn’t selling the burgers which it sold in western countries.

Product Development: By bringing new range of clothing targeting the existing customers, profitability can surely be increased. The one area where M&S really needs to work upon on this step. It needs to have clothing ranges and should be with current fashion trends.

Porter’s Generic Strategies

Porter explained a category scheme which consists of three general types of strategies that are often used by businesses to achieve and maintain competitive advantage. These three generic strategies are defined along two dimensions: strategic scope and strategic strength. Strategic scope is a demand-side dimension and looks at the size and composition of the market organisation intend to focus. While, Strategic strength is a supply-side dimension and looks at the strength or core competency of the organisation. Porter identified two competencies that he felt were most important: product differentiation and product cost.

Figure: Porter generic strategies

Considering porter’s generic strategies in Marks and Spencer’s case, the following options are concluded:

Differentiation Strategy: Marks and Spencer needs to focus on sustaining its edge competitive edge over other competitors by maintaining its quality and improving the services. Company should focus on providing the best services t its customers. For example having enough change rooms and fitting sections, having different ranges and variety of products with the best quality to meet the need of all the customers. By having fashion stylists and specialists for different section of merchandise, who can suggest and guide the customers, who in turn will make the customers experience better. By having enough number of well trained and motivated staffs at the store, M&S will be able to serve customers in better way and will maintain its edge over other competitors. Uniqueness competency should not only be maintained in product quality but should also be maintained in the services and store infrastructure and the overall experience which customers get at company’s stores.

Segmentation Strategy: M&S needs to formulate segmentation strategy to target on specific group of customers, based on culture and age group. Company has been seen more as stores for mature and people in the age group of 35 -54, with its prominent grey and black shades of merchandise. Company should start focusing on its marketing and sales strategies to target youths. With globalization and because of free society in UK, the non British populations forms a major part of customers, which is still being untapped by the company. M&S should target this segment based on different cultures and countries.

Cost Leadership: Having cost competency is always fruitful in increasing the market share of the company, but it can’t be taken as a long term strategy. It may reap fruits in short term but it will further decrease either profit margin or the competitive edge of the organisation. Marks and Spencer should not fail because of cost of its products as it does play a role, but it should also maintain the quality and competitive edge over its competitors.

4.1 Option 1 _Market Penetration Strategy

Table 1: Market Penetration Strategy

Strategy Option

Marks and Spencer is though the leading retailer in the UK market, but as per the data available, the various clothing subsections were having market shares in one digit only. There is a high growth opportunity and company need to plan focused marketing and sales strategies to penetrate further in the current market. M&S should concentrate on consolidating its position by following better Market Penetration Strategy.

Probable Outcome

By focusing on the current market segments like, Underwear and linger, Children’s wear, Men’s outer wear and Clothing merchandise in which M&S is already competiting, company will not only be able to make its position strong but will be also raise its market share. The estimated outcome is that the M&S will be able to penetrate further into the market and will consolidate its position in different subsectors of clothing and will be able to achieve nearly 10% of market share.The major concern though is the current economic recession and the high competition from the companies like Asda, Marks and Spencer and Next who has been able to increase their market share by lowering the prices.To overcome this issue, the company needs to maintain its competitive edge and make the customers feel that, the products they are buying are worth every penny. And as explain above, M&S can handle this issue by maintaining uniqueness competency.

Advantages1. Market is well known to the company, so company need not to invest extra to understand and study the customers and the infrastructure required.

2. Customers already know the brand name of M&S, so it will save time and revenue spend in marketing and advertisements.

3. Company already handling these customers so they know very well about their expectations and henceforth can formulate strategies to cater their needs and fulfill their expectations.

Disadvantages 1. Customers are well aware about the company’s brands and services and they already have a image of the company, which is very difficult to change.

2. The market is very mature and the competition is very high, companies offering the low prices are gaining the market share, and if M&S follows the same suit, it will decrease its profit margin.

3. Being a big organisation it’s not easy to bring strategic changes and decide the policies at the ground level of the organisation.

4.2 Option 2_Niche Strategy

Table 2: Niche Strategy

Strategy Option

Creating Niche business strategy is basically to target specific set of customers who share common characteristics. Marks and Spencer should form a strategy to target immigrant population from Asia aged above 40+.As the youths tend to adjust themselves according the latest fashion and trends, the adult and the mature people likes to stick to their roots and fashion. The major Asian population here is from Indian subcontinent and they come from almost same culture so targeting them will be beneficial.

Probable Outcome

By entering into this market company can strengthened its position on men’s outerwear and women’s outerwear which can grow upto 8% of market share in the span of 3 years.The area of concern for M&S is, that company will have to change its strategy to focus only on the western population. It’s basically an issue with the mindset of the management.This can be overcome, by good communication strategy and by educating them about the benefits of this strategy and by bringing them in confidence.

Advantages1. Targetting a niche market means that only a sizeable amount of customers are being targeted and hence capital investment is less.

2. As the niche market being targeted shares common characteristics and culture so it is easier to achieve growth in this segment once company is able to penetrate the market.

3. Being one of the most famous brands in UK, it is easier for the company to convince the customers about the quality and the services provided by the company.

Disadvantages 1. Targetting a niche market is always considered as a risky strategy, because company is focusing into totally new segment which it has no experience of.

2. Focussing on a specific market means, revenues are being diverted to focus on a different unknown market and in the case of failure or if the expected results are not achieved then it can really be cause of trouble.

3. Without proper study and analysis of this market, it is very difficult to penetrate it, which means company need to spend considerable time and resources to gather the data related.

5. Recommendation

On evaluating the probable strategies ,by considering the Ansoff Model,Porter generic strategy,Penetration Strategy and Niche strategy, we can suggest that the best suitable strategy for Marks and Spencer would be to maintain its Comptetive edge and focus on the Market penetration strategy.Being a brand name, it is already well known in the market so, it is not facing new customers, hence it is easier for the company to focus on this market as it already has a presence and it knows well about the trends and culture prevalent in the market.While, keeping the experience of recession and the maturity of clothing industry of uk ,marks and spencer should also need to venture into the gorwing economies like India,Brazil and China.Company should consolidatde its position as these are countries with fastest growing economies and the buying capacity of consumers have increased .They are also the countries with the largets customer base.To conclude, the recommended marketing strategie for Marks and spencer for the next three years should be Penetration Strategy and the Diversification Strategy.

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