Relationship between the Strategic Position and Strategic Choices of Essay - 1

Relationship between the Strategic Position and Strategic Choices of Marks & Spencer Plc - Essay Example This research will begin with the statement that Marks and Spencer (M&S) had occupied a leading position in the UK retail industry and had been able to sustain success for several years. However, its performance over the last two decades has not been much influential which has resulted in the decline in customer base and market share as compared to its competitors. Historically, Michael Marks, during the late 1880s established a penny bazaar wherein he offered a majority of products costing one penny. This business of Marks accorded significant success and inspired by this success Marks rapidly expanded his business. With the growing size of the business, Marks was joined by a partner Tom Spencer, this partnership led to the establishment of M&S. The partnership business steadily grew and by the beginning of 21st century, M&S growth began to roll out unprecedentedly. Later, Simon Marks took the management of M&S. He made numerous changes in the operational strategy of M&S. He transfo rmed that penny bazaar into stores and adopted simple pricing strategy. He also introduced ‘St Michael’ logo as a quality sign. However, since 1998, M&S had confronted with numerous challenges as well as it had adopted several strategies to deal with the emerging challenges. However, the most of measures undertaken by M&S to cope up with the problems encountered by it had not been fruitful. Strategic positioning is an attempt to realize sustainable competitive advantage by identifying and preserving the distinct resources and capabilities. It involves the execution of different activities from competitors or executing similar activities in a different manner than the rivals in the marketplace. Moreover, strategic positioning is ascertained to be closely bounded by the environment in which the business operates. Thus, strategic positioning can be precisely defined as devising future position of the business based on the analysis of the industry or environmental condition s in which it operates. Besides, strategic positioning involves positioning a business based on its strengths and weaknesses that enable it to outperform its competitors in the marketplace.