Describe about the Fashion Design Management for A Global Expansion to Acquire.
Marketing management refers to the process of developing and implementing the marketing strategies of an organization (Kotler et al. 2015). There is a lot of importance of marketing management as it helps the organizations to achieve the ultimate marketing goal of the organization. This study is about the fashion marketing strategy of a world famous fashion clothes manufacturer and seller, Marks and Spencer. Marks and Spencer is a major fashion garments retailer, founded in the year of 1984. The company has a employee base of more than 80,000 (Marksandspencer.com 2016). The company witnessed a massive downfall in the business in the year of 1990. There was some specific reason behind the downfall of the company. However, with the help of effective product development strategy, Marks and Spencer bounced back and came to the good position. All the aspects of the above-discussed incidents are discussed below.
Before the year of 1990, Marks and Spencer used to be one of the major fashion retailers in London. The company used to produce high-end garments for the consumers. One of the reasons of the success of Marks and Spencer was the less number of competitors in the market at that time. However, in the year of 1990, the company started to experience decline in the business (Tench 2016). There were some specific reasons behind this downfall. These reasons are discussed below in details:
High Product Cost: A major reason of the downfall of the business of Marks and Spencer was the high cost of the products. Due to the monopoly in the market, the company used to set high prices of the products. This strategy was successful until there were more competitors of the company in the market. At the presence of the competitors, the price of the products of Marks and Spencer proved to be high. On the other hand, the excess number of suppliers was another cause of the downfall of the company (Telegraph.co.uk 2016).
Product Range: Another reason of the failure of Marks and Spencer was the unattractive range of products. The garments that Marks and Spencer used to produce failed to satisfy the needs of the customers. The reason was that the products of Marks and Spencer were unattractive and fragmented. At the presence of the other companies in the same market, the customers identified the fact that the products of Marks and Spencer were inferior compared to the products of other companies. On the other hand, Marks and Spencer were unable to produce different ranges of clothes as per the requirement of the customers (Jain and Sukhlecha 2012).
Competitors: The arrival of other competitors was the most important factors that contributed toward the failure of the business of Marks and Spencer. In the early years, Marks and Spencer used to operate in a market where there were not many companies that could give Marks and Spencer a competition. However, in the year of 1990, the arrival of fast fashion and discount retailers changed the scenario of the market. These companies started to produce high street fashion garments with a competitively lower price. Certainly, Marks and Spencer was not able to cope up with the change and they started to evidence fall in their business (Brophy 2012).
Lack of Advertisement: Another crucial reason behind the downfall of Marks and Spencer was the lack of advertisement campaigns. The company did not have any kind of marketing advertisement strategies to boost the sale of their products. At the same time, other companies adopted attractive and effective advertisement campaigns so that the information of their products can be reach to the customers. This is a major area where Marks and Spencer failed to get the desired competitive advantage and their business started to decline (Field and Malbone 2015).
Attractive Offers: At the time of 1990, the companies started to come up with more and more attractive discount offers that attracted the customers towards their products. However, Marks and Spencer refused to introduce any kind of discount offers so that their sales can be boosted; and as a result, the business of Marks and Spencer started to decline. All these reasons together contributed towards the decline of the business of Marks and Spencer (Khan 2013).
The decline in the business of Marks and Spencer forced the management of the company to take some necessary steps for the revival of the business of the company. The new management of the company responded in well manner by providing an effective strategy to eradicate the downfall of the business. As per the unique policy of Marks and Spencer, the power of the product development lies in the hands of the customers of the company. Fifty designers were assigned for the development of various kinds of products. Those entire fifty designer made designs for new clothes and then they communicate those designs to the manufacturer of the organization. The company closely observed and monitored the designs of those designers; after the they applied those design as per the requirements of the company and the customers. This whole process is called the direct buying process. As per this process, the designer team directly communicates with the manufacturing team in order to quick production of the products (Ahmed 2016).
There are some specific requirements for the completion of the total process. The first requirement is that the various teams in Marks and Spencer need to know the various characteristics of different fabrics and the effect of them on the garments. One of the most important aspect of direct buying development strategy is that all the members of the company like the designers, manufacturers, buyers, merchandiser and others work together in order to develop a kind of expertise in the product development process. The sourcing managers of the company used to work together with the suppliers and retailers in order to make good relationship with them. The introduction of innovation in the products of Marks and Spencer was another step towards the revival of the position of the company. The company introduces some innovative features in their products like suits that can be washed in machines, wool and cashmere knitwear and others in a very affordable price. By the use of innovation, Marks and Spencer made some products that were not available in any other stores. In case of the price of the products, Marks and Spencer used the ‘Good, better and best’ price matrix of Wal-Mart in order to set up competitive prices of their products in order to get the necessary competitive edge. By doing all these, Marks and Spencer completed the repositioning strategy by keeping the same core value of the company (Purvis 2015).
As per the above discussion, it can be observed that Marks and Spencer took some effective steps in order to regain the lost market place. However, those were not the only steps that the company could take. Marks and Spencer could take more corrective measures to revive the situation. First of all, Marks and Spencer could add some extra features with the existing products in order to tap the new customers as the products of the company was not up to the expectation of the consumers. They could find out the preferences of the customers by doing various surveys and business researches (Stark 2015). Secondly, the company could use the developed technology in order to develop their various products. The use of more advanced technology in the production process would help to reduce the production time that would contribute to low production cost. Thirdly, Marks and Spencer could use different quality levels in order to bring quality in their products. There were numerous other steps that Marks and Spencer could adopt for the development of the products like the company could use some improved models of other top-level business organization to develop the products of them (Ward and Sobek II 2014).
Conclusion
As per the above study, Marks and Spencer was a major fashion retailers in London before the year of 1990 as there were not many companies that could give a tough competition to Marks and Spencer. However, the scenario changed in the year of 1990 when more new companies started to enter in the market of London with superior products than Marks and Spencer along with more affordable prices. According to the study, there were certain reasons that contributed to the decline of Marks and Spencer. Some of the major reasons are the high product cost of the company, weak range of products, entry of new competitors, lack of attractive advertisement campaigns, lack of attractive offers and many others. However, Marks and Spencer made effective strategy in the form of ‘direct buying’ to revive the situation of the company. Marks and Spencer could take some more steps to revive the situation like the use of more advanced technology, to follow the model of other companies and others.
References
Ahmed, U., 2016. Marks & Spencer: A Global Expansion to Acquire Lost Momentum?. In Market Entry in China (pp. 61-72). Springer International Publishing.
Brophy, A.L., 2012. Go White, Young Man.
Field, A.R. and Malbone, E.G., 2015. Portrait Miniatures. The Early Republic and Antebellum America: An Encyclopedia of Social, Political, Cultural, and Economic History, p.235.
Jain, M. and Sukhlecha, M.L., 2012. FDI in Multi-Brand Retail: Is it the need of the hour. Zenith International Journal of Multi-disciplinary Research, 2(6), pp.108-131.
Khan, O., 2013. Managing risk by internalising product design in fashion retail: An exploratory case of Marks & Spencer. Manchester School of Management, Manchester.
Kotler, P., Keller, K.L., Manceau, D. and Hémonnet-Goujot, A., 2015. Marketing management (Vol. 14). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall
Marksandspencer.com. (2016). Welcome to Marks & Spencer. [online] Available at: https://www.marksandspencer.com/ [Accessed 9 Dec. 2016].
Purvis, M., 2015. Direction and discretion: the roles of centre and branch in the interwar management of Marks and Spencer. History of Retailing and Consumption, 1(1), pp.63-81.
Ruddick, G. (2016). Why are Marks & Spencer sales still falling?. [online] Telegraph.co.uk. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/epic/mks/11203400/Will-Marks-and-Spencer-be-able-to-beat-the-Christmas-blues.html [Accessed 9 Dec. 2016].
Stark, J., 2015. Product lifecycle management. In Product Lifecycle Management (pp. 1-29). Springer International Publishing.
Tench, R., 2016. The Corporate Social Responsibility in Lidl’s Communication Campaigns in Croatia and the UK. The Qualitative Report, 21(2), p.352.
Ward, A.C. and Sobek II, D.K., 2014. Lean product and process development. Lean Enterprise Institute.
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