Debenhams is a multinational retail chain in United Kingdom that also operates on 172 all other different location across UK, Denmark and Ireland. The UK head office in Oxford Street has 1500 staff and small four offices in the current site (Debenhams.com. 2017).
The operation process of the company consists of review and update of the packages and distribution and tracking of the products. The retail outlet of Debenhams houses different brands as well as its own in-house brands. With the clothing brands, they also sell food, beauty and gifts. Some of the new brands are Betty Jackson Black ladies fashion brand, Jeff Banks menswear. Other services given by the store are credit card services, loyalty card programs (Campaignlive.co.uk, 2017).
The company is solely dependent on the retail operation across the country. To get the system in order and dealing efficiently with the multiple suppliers, inventory locations and distribution centres an effective operation plan is needed. Standardising the process the distribution channel is part of the operation process. The following is the process description with importance and effectiveness of the process (Hopkin 2017).
The company has 153 stores in 23 countries. The performance gaps identified is in profitability of the Debenhams (Debenhams.com. 2017). The internal performance of the company is in knowledge gap, which can causes sales problems (Vlachos 2014). Other gaps can be in skills, ability and motivation. The company certainly does not have gap in ability to perform, but if the employees are not fit for the job the performance gets affected. The company faced an issue related 3rd party application performing badly (Campaignlive.co.uk, 2017). This affected their performance in maintaining the downtime in delivery. This also affected in financial performance of the company (Vlachos 2014). The network of the company and servers in Debenhams are joined with the application named Verify solutions and leading methodologies. This software solution helps them in quickly capturing details of traffic of information and based on the result generate reports (Priest and Gass 2017). The IT personnel use this application at their advantage (Vlachos 2014). However, they must acknowledge the relevancy of the information. The random information for service network manager is essential for improvement. The quality of performance is very crucial to consider based on the feedback of the company. The financial performance has indicated the downfall in sales in 2017. The volatility in the sales performance as well as in the retail market has affected negatively (Muchina and Okello 2016)y. Competing with Marks and Spencer has hit lower bottom though the Food sale has increased. As the Brick and Mortar, industry is getting tougher to compete with in UK (Muchina and Okello 2016). However, the diversified companies are looking for recovery in the gaps from the clothing section of retail in Debenhams. The company has restricted its target population with the Midult women and millennial. Therefore, not being able to sell the products to other age people and minimising their reach affects their overall performance (Goossens et al. 2017). The main performance gap is also in not having strong in-house brands. As the mobile customers are increasing maintaining different store outlet has become expensive form them (Muchina and Okello 2016). That is why they are also looking to close 11 warehouses also with the increase in shop prices (Debenhams.com. 2017). This is also to focus on the sociable marketing of the company. The venture in the foreign countries is not as successful. The Return on investment of opening many shops in Hungary, Malaysia and the Middle East has decreased the profitability of the company overall (Muchina and Okello 2016).
Debenhams was initially very effective in innovation in the retail outlets. The posh outlets were very creative in design and development. The new lighting in the department stores was introduced in the last years, which increased their attraction in the stores. Housing different premium fashion brands of UK made them very important icon in Oxford street fashion giant. Not only in the appearance had the company innovated their products and services very efficiently in the last five years (Campaignlive.co.uk, 2017). The loyalty card programs, branded beauty clubs and customers health and beauty products were crucial for improving the overall sales of the company (Campaignlive.co.uk, 2017).
Though the business has slowed down in the performance, some of the ideas can be suggested to improve the marketing function of Debenhams. In the product, presentation section the target market must be paid a visit for predicting the consumer’s taste and preference as well as the expectations of the customers. This will ensure the innovation and creativity is coordinated with the customer choice. The service rendered by the company must include the customer testimonials to ensure the transparency in their services that have been provided (Iwu et al. 2016). Planning a proper effective discount plan can also improve the perception of the customers in bargaining process. The brand strategy should be based on the superior services and offering the concierge service can uplift the process. The dedicated customer service or online service should be backed with the online chat (Lang et al. 2016). The personal stylist appointments can be given as a benefit for the company and participation in the advisory board for more opportunity. Collaborating with Amazon can make the process easy for the company to tap into better market opportunities for company (Lang et al. 2016)y. Improvement in the process can be done through the transactional emails and thus it can encourage the target customers to generate the more attraction and also encourage in repeat visits (Moeran 2016). The customer data can be recorded after keeping the data to create more relevant target and drive sales. Value added retail content in marketing through the social media could increase the loyalty changes in the program. To leverage loyalty of the customers the offering discounts can be improve the effort of the company to increase customer satisfaction (Iwu et al. 2016). Enhancing the customer engagement and store profits can benefit the optimisation process. Brand management is necessary for the company to maximise the retail clothing (Moeran 2016). The loyalty programs in this area are effective to be implemented as maximising the sales is necessary for the company. Retail marketing experts suggests that interactive loyalty assessments and retail blog increases customer engagement and attraction of the store is useful for Debenhams to consider. Generating a Buzz and creating smart social selling plan can be suggested for the company (Johnston et al. 2013). To increase marketing performance of the company the advertisements, newspaper ads, magazines, different publications and social media selling in the company can be given more emphasis in increasing brand performance. Moving the stores in the popular and area where the traffic of shoppers is maximum can also improve the business of the company (Johnston et al. 2013).
Debenhams is fully operated by the organisation’s hierarchy. The key people in the organisation are Sir Ian Cheshire, the Chairperson and Sergio Butcher CEO. The marketing manager of the company is Richard, as well as the marketing functions advisor. The financial analyst and marketing specialist are the ones who like to embody the whole staff relationship of the company. Line authority and staff authority are the ones who take care of the uninterrupted staff relationship taken for the organisation (Jordan and Lloyd 2017). Most of the time the floor managers are one who coordinates with line managers for decision taking. The function of people in a pure staff their capacity is to investigate research and give advice to the line managers.
The staff hierarchy has responsibility in the department of support. They support the line function managers and personnel management. The staff managers do not have direct control over the line employees. The difference in the two hierarchies in modern practise is in the job roles. The jobs have both elements of different types of functions. The staff relationship has different advantage. This tries to maintain the clarity in relationship, unity of command over their staff, promptness in decision-making, effectiveness in coordination among the employees, fixed responsibility and discipline among the employees (Wright and Khatri 2015). There are also disadvantages in maintaining this kind of hierarchy. The difficulty in staffing relationship in this method is concentration of the authority, lack of specialisation, lesser motivation, ineffective communication as well as difficulty the process. Providing an expert advice, increasing efficiency and issues handling in the staff is part of the responsibility in the staff organisation (Jordan and Lloyd 2017). The line and staff relations are by the cord of authority in relations, the types of degree vary in decision-making level. The line managers are to perform their duties as an advisor in the process. The relationship must be harmonious to achieve the organisational objectives of the company. The relation must also may face conflict in the process. The resistance to line and staff managers must have sky gazing specialists (Wright and Khatri 2015). The staff officer’s role in their job is more theoretical in nature. The departmental goals must be taken into account when the company’s failures get credit for success in the process. The merits of having the internal staff relationship management are the planned specialisation (Jordan and Lloyd 2017). The proper staff execution plan also comes under his responsibility (Bourne 2016). The definiteness among the report generated in the reports that are very important for the company to consider. The staff manager also provides proper administrative services as well as measuring organisational effectiveness (Safi et al. 2016).
Relationship marketing with the customers has emerged in this century. This has become essential for the marketers to consider. The practitioners and consumers are the focus of the marketers as they are the source of revenue generation in business. This aspect of maintaining a relationship engages the customers in the sales process and is the only part where the customers get to interact with the company personnel directly. This interaction is crucial for the retail selling (Lund et al. 2017). Chances of buying the product depend on this interaction too. Main motive of this is to maintain and retain the customers by involving them in this process of marketing. The digitalisation of every aspect of Debenhams has also provided those with the opportunities of maintain the customer’s data and records of their purchases. The loyalty programs are built on that software solution. The communication channels used in this process can be of digital medium. CRM approaches can increase can be used in strategic, operational, collaborative level of management (Lund et al. 2017). Database marketing of the customer data and analysing the databases is essential in this process. The customer bases are PeopleSoft, Oracle and SAP. According to the marketing managers of the Debenhams, it has been confirmed by them that there is 200% more chances of growing market share if the customer relation management is maintained properly. Getting an overview of the company’s Customer Lifetime Value increases the revenue and growth of the company. The attitudinal and insights of the company may be used as a valuable input for the business according to the marketing chief of the company Richard Cristofoli. Though the company is going through a rough condition being the challenger in the market, the proper maintenance of the company’s customer data can improve their performance (Peck et al. 2013). To collect and store personal information and tracking, personal but not the private information of their customers can give them an advantage to them (Huang 2015). Target based resource allocation, through CRM software can prove efficient for the purposes of increasing marketing. The business organisation uses the software tools to get a better outcome and insight in the performance. The analysis of the records and history of purchase data will be help in predicting future customer behaviour (Peck et al. 2013). Ultra quick responding to the customer complaints and queries can also be effecting resolving any issues regarding purchase information (Bojei et al. 2013). The service personnel of the company in utilising their performance in the process of marketing and sales are also necessary to consider improvising the relationship management aspect. To an extent the acknowledging the queries is also helpful in engaging the customer in this process. Regular updates regarding discounts and sale is also necessary part of the process (Bojei et al. 2013).
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