The Role Of Inclusive Design In Stakeholder Satisfaction: A Case Study Of Marks And Spencer

Background of the Research

Marks and Spencer is one of the major British Multinational Companies that is headquartered in the city of Westminster, London. It is listed in the stock exchange London Stock Exchange. The company specializes itself in selling of clothing, home products, luxury items, food and many other things. Theparticular study will deal with the inclusive designing strategy of the company in the current as well as for the coming days.

The problem statement lays in the fact that how the managerial department of Marks and Spencer fits inclusive design in both international and local markets.  

The issue that has been identified in the research must be dealt in properly to address the issues properly. The identification of the inclusive designing is a must for a brand like M&S to be more successful in the market. Addressing the specific needs of the consumer will help it to gain a certain degree of competitive advantage that will be hard to emit.

The aim of the research is to identify how the Multinational retail food chain especially Marks and Spencer uses inclusive design to serve the more specific needs of consumers. On the other hand the objectives of the research is to get a good idea of the  inclusive design and the models of  inclusive design that are and will be used by Marks and Spencer to reach out to more  specific customers and increase their brand value.

The null and alternate hypotheses are as follows;

H0: The business models and Inclusive Design theory of the mentioned organization are not related to each other.

H1: The business model and Inclusive Design theory of the mentioned organization are related

The total study will be based mainly on the secondary sources. The resources that will be used for the secondary research includes the likes of different journals, books, online data, resources or information collected from the  employees and also previous researches done on the same  topic. The responses that are obtained from the experts shall also be evaluated by transforming the information into different themes. There will be no such qualitative analysis as because it is not possible to gain proper response by the conduction of a survey on a selected group of individuals. Thus the findings from the particular research will be mainly based on the findings of the secondary research.

Persson,(2015) mention that inclusive design refers to designing of products to meet the needs of elderly people. The multinational companies like M&S market products like food products and disability products to help the elderly customers. The companies further divide the elderly customer base into different segments like people with dietary challenges due to health issues and customers with disability. These companies have evolved their product line to serve deeper needs of the elderly customer segments like those thriving on vegan food items. Ceric et al. (2016) further mentions that international business organizations today involve the customers by encouraging them to express more specific needs which they would like the existing products to satisfy. For example, today international retail chains retailing food offer similar food products having various quantities of sugar to suit the lifestyle needs of specific consumers. The young people can have a variant having a lot of sugar while the aged and the health conscious consumer prefer the sugar-free variant of the food products (marksandspencer.com, 2018).Rodriguez, Peterson and Ajjan(2015)mention that customer satisfaction plays a very important role for the firms and help to generate revenue. Business organizations today create value for consumers through inclusive designing strategies to maximize customer satisfaction and generate revenue. Ottman (2017) points out to a darker side of inclusive design and points out that developing variants of products to satisfy individual tastes requires huge initial investment on the side of the firms. Kotabe and Kothari (2016) point out in this regard that inclusive design is a strategy that is used mostly by established multinational companies. This is because they have a huge consumer base which provides them with the revenue that they channelize towards research and development of inclusive design products. Plangger and Watson (2015) further points out that business organizations use consumer insight as a strategic tool to predict the customer preferences which can emerge in the future. This helps them to develop the attributes in their existing products to cater to the future consumer insights. Nyberg and Soini (2017) point out that multinational companies aim to create and strengthen the experience of the customers of using their products through inclusive design. Lee et al. (2016), however points out that failed inclusive design strategies result in draining of wealth. Thus, one can infer from the discussion that inclusive design strategies enable business organizations cater to more specific needs of the consumers to enhance the value of their purchase. This leads to generate more revenue for the marketer of the following design. The analysis clearly points out that the success of inclusive designing strategies of multinational companies is dependent heavily on the purchase and consumers preferences of consumers, one of the most important stakeholder groups.

Statement of the Problem

Hörisch, Freemanand & Schaltegger(2014) mention that as per stakeholder theory, stakeholders refers to the groups or individuals which have significant interest in the operations of business organizations. The internal stakeholders consist of the apex management and employees of the organizations. The external stakeholders consist of the government, investors, consumers, the society, suppliers, distributors and even rival companies. Dawuda (2016) points out that apex management bodies of business organizations make decisions while the employee execute them. Thus, the apex management and the employees have the power to impact the organizations through their functions. Similarly, governments make policies on which industries work while financial institutions provide financial help the business organizations which fund their operations. Vezzoli et al. (2015) mention that the consumers similarly consume the products and generate revenue for the company. Thus, analysis shows that support of stakeholders are important for companies to sustain in the market. Rodriguez, Peterson and Ajjan (2015) supports this view and mentions that value creation and enhancement for stakeholders have become crucial for the substance and growth of the business organizations. This significant role of the stakeholders has made it important for multinational business organizations to map their stakeholders.

Power	latents: Keep satisfied Governments, financial institutions	Promoters: manage closely Consumers, investors,
Monitor: Apathetic Apex management, employees	Keep Informed: Defenders Media, marketing companies, society
	Interest

(Source: Author)

The figure above shows mapping of stakeholders which business organizations need to manage. The figure has four quadrants namely, latent, promoters, monitor and keep informed. The latent consists of stakeholders which the business organizations must keep satisfied to sustain in the market. The group consists of governments and financial institutions. The next quadrant consists of promoters or the stakeholder group which they need to manage closely. This group ideally consists of consumers and investors which provide business organizations with capital and revenue respectively. The quadrant consists of apex management and employees of business organizations which monitor the working of the business organizations. The last quadrant consists of media and society which the business organizations need to keep informed about their business strategies. The analysis clearly points out the tremendous impact stakeholders have on business organizations and the necessity of the latter to create value for the latter. The business organizations use two important tools namely stakeholder consultation and business modeling to maximize value creation for stakeholder groups.

Business organizations today engage their stakeholder groups like the government and consumers right at the initial stage of strategy making. Mason  and Simmons (2014) point that business organizations today gain the views of the consumers and seek their suggestions regarding further developments which they want in future products. These consultations actually correspond to the view that since products impact the consumers, the consumers have the right to decide the products. These cause and effect relationship between the companies and their consumers give rise to continuous consultation process. Daugherty and Hoffman (2014) point out that advancement in technology have led to the emergence of social media as a crucial platform for stakeholder consultations, particularly from consumers. The business organizations today can gain product ideas from their global base of consumers which help to develop new variants of their existing products. This aim of the entire process of stakeholder consultations and new product development through inclusive design marketing is business modeling.

Rationale of the Research

The business organizations today adopt business modeling to create more value for customers and generate more revenue. Rodriguez, Peterson and Ajjan(2015) clearly points out that business organizations aim to use inclusive designing to cater to more specific needs of the customers. The origin of business modeling begins at the business planning stage where the apex management makes plans about the products (Spisak et al., 2015).. They incorporate the customer views and suggestions gained through consumer consultation processes. For example, the multinational food retail chains today obtain consultations from consumers regarding types or varieties of food products which they want from them in the future. They then incorporate the different expectations of the consumers while developing new products (Daugherty& Hoffman, 2014). The retail food chains are offering food products having low sugar and vegan food to cater to aged and health conscious consumers. The consumer specific products enhance the customer satisfaction which generates more revenue from the customers. Thus, this analysis shows that business modeling can be used a strategic tool to implement inclusive designing to satisfy more specific needs of the consumers. The growing importance of the inclusive design in business modeling is evident from the fact that companies consult multinational consultants to develop their products (deloitte.com, 2018).

Multinational companies like Marks & Spencer today use inclusive design to develop products which cater to a more specific segment of customers. Their aim is generate more revenue by satisfying as many a large spectrum of consumers. For example, low sugar food items are preferred by both elderly people and the health conscious people. These companies use business modeling and stakeholder consultations to develop these products. Kotabe and Kothari (2016) mention that inclusive design strategy can be used by multinational companies which have vast financial resources. These resources are used to allocate funds towards development of new products. These companies like M&S use customer insight to predict future demands of customers. They then integrate this vast reserve of consumer information in developing new forms of their existing products which are aligned to the customer expectations. These products enhance the value of consumer purchases thus maximizing the value. This analysis clearly shows that inclusive design which MNC retail chains like M&S use have contribute to their high market position (Daugherty& Hoffman, 2014).

The researcher will be taking the help of the positivism research philosophy to conduct the research as because it provides a logical manner to the study of the particular topic. The particular research is objective in nature and the research is based on real facts. The hypothesis for the research is based on the inductive reasoning which will be tested during the process of the research.

Research Aims and Objectives

 The deductive research approach has been used in this particular study to continue with the research. This is because the formulator of this report will be considering a number of different theories and models. The already existing theories of Inclusive designing will be used in this research. The other reason for its use in the study is because it helps in the development of the hypothesis for the management of Marks and Spencer to use inclusive designing (Camilleri, 2017).

Different types of research designs has their own use (Bala,Labonté-LeMoyne& Léger, 2017). The researcher will be taking any one between analytic or descriptive design as because it helps the research to achieve a detailed idea about the different frameworks as well as concepts  involved in the particular research topic. The descriptive and the analytical design both support the use of secondary data sources.

The research strategy that will be used in this particular research will be used to manage the research in a more compact way. The deductive research strategy will be used in this research to avoid any form of risk (Somoray, Wishart&Biggs, 2016).. This is because a very short time will be available for completing the whole research.

The findings that will be deduced from the research will all be based on the secondary sources of data and so the data will be collected from the secondary data only. The information that will be received from the different books, journals, magazines, online sources, earlier researches will form the backbone of the research (Walsham, 2018). The concentration of the research will be on the recent inclusive designing strategies that will be adopted by the management of Marks and Spencer. However the researcher will also involve a collation, summary and synthesis of the different primary researches in the data collection method to make the research a more standard one.   

The secondary data that will be used in this particular research will be evaluated using the thematic analysis. As mentioned earlier a number of themes would be formed by transforming the data that will be collected both by primary as well as secondary resources. The themes that will be used in the research will help in the evaluation and recording of the different types of information. The themes will determine the different elements related to the use of inclusive design theory of Marks and Spencers.

The validity of the information will depend on the particular ability of the tests that will be undertaken by the researcher. It is important for the researcher to check the validity of the research to ensure the proper validity of the collected data. Reliability is the limit to which assessment tools can create a stable and consistent result of the information (Walsham, 2018).

Research Hypothesis

The ethical considerations are one of the most important considerations in this particular research. The researcher will first have to ensure the safety and security of the research participants and should also maintain both their and their data privacy. As on the research front, the researcher must ensure that no plagiarism is done in the research and all the concepts and theories are correctly cited according to its original form (Walsham, 2018). There should be no use of slang languages or any form of foul play. The content of the research must not be used for promotional or commercial purpose. Carrying the research ethically helps to make the research more successful and effective in nature.

Though the researcher will try to put all the elements, theories and concepts, ensure the following of ethics but still there maybe some limitations in the study.  The lack of  access to some key resources to the study, lack of proper time, arise of different problems and issues and many other internal and external factors can limit the scope of the study. However the completion of the study within a limited time frame will be a challenge for the researcher to overcome. In such cases a proactive behavior and following a proper time schedule can do the trick.

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish
Research Proposal Timeline	82 days	Mon 4/30/18	Tue 8/21/18
Selection of the Research Topic	1 day	Mon 4/30/18	Mon 4/30/18
Approval of the Research Topic	2 days	Tue 5/1/18	Wed 5/2/18
Researching and the Development of the Aims and Objectives	6 days	Thu 5/3/18	Thu 5/10/18
Preliminary Investigation	10 days	Fri 5/11/18	Thu 5/24/18
Assembling all the Preliminary Data	5 days	Fri 5/25/18	Thu 5/31/18
Researching the Data	6 days	Fri 6/1/18	Fri 6/8/18
Compiling the Data	10 days	Mon 6/11/18	Fri 6/22/18
Submission of the Draft	1 day	Mon 6/25/18	Mon 6/25/18
Continuation of the Research	20 days	Tue 6/26/18	Mon 7/23/18
Assembling New Information	10 days	Tue 6/26/18	Mon 7/9/18
Identification of the Sample	1 day	Tue 7/10/18	Tue 7/10/18
Selecting The Number of Sample Size	4 days	Wed 7/11/18	Mon 7/16/18
Interviewing The Sample Population	5 days	Tue 7/17/18	Mon 7/23/18
Researching on the Available Data	21 days	Tue 7/24/18	Tue 8/21/18
Compiling the Total Data	10 days	Tue 7/24/18	Mon 8/6/18
Assembling and Preparing the final Report	10 days	Tue 8/7/18	Mon 8/20/18
Final Submission	1 day	Tue 8/21/18	Tue 8/21/18

Timeline Table

Source:  (As created by author)

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