WHAT CAN BE DONE TO STOP M&S PROFITS FALLING? .
The business needs a complete overhaul management needs to be streamlined, the business structure needs to be re-organised to make it more efficient and the marketing mix need to be changed to begin with. I shall research into Marks and Spencers mostly by going to their website and finding break-even charts, profit and loss accounts and financial results for recent years. I will also go into Marks and Spencer stores and ask for relevant information such as accounts, and I will look around stores to see if anything needs to be improved such as the layout and the appearance of the shop etc. I will look at Marks and Spencers product ranges and the style of it's clothes to see if the quality is up to standard and the clothes are fashionable. I will look through the newspapers looking for the latest news and information and I will check newspaper websites such as ft.com for information on M&S in its archives. Once I have obtained enough information from a variety of sources I will read through my data and analyse it to decide how relevant it is to my question. I will then use the data to help me reach accurate recommendations on how to stop Marks and Spencers profits falling. .
The Financial summary shows useful information for the past 5 years from this you can see that profit has been increasing until 1999 when it sharply drops. Also you can see where the turnover is coming from so you can see which parts of the business are doing well and which are not. From this I can see that UK retail is doing badly and overseas retail and financial services are doing well as turnover is increasing. Other information such as number of employees and square footage used by the business is also shown, this is useful to see how sales relate to square footage as an increase in the number of outlets should mean an increase in turnover but the summary shows that turnover has slightly decreased.