Strategy Implementation Plan

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Introduction

Strategy Implementation Plan, The organization selected for the following writing is Marks & Spencer which is a UK based retail grocery chain. It is currently among the most premier clothing, food and financial service retailers of the United Kingdom and therefore, is committed to service, quality and customer value. The vision statement of Marks & Spencer is to be the standard against which others are measured. In order to achieve this vision, the strategic plan benchmarked include climate change, customers health and well-being and fair partnership with the associates (Spencer, 2005).

The major aim and purpose of this strategic plan are to reduce the amount of waste and unused substances produced by the factories of Marks & Spencer and to protect the natural resources of the earth to promote a healthy lifestyle among all of their consumers. Marks & Spencer is also aiming towards the application of fair trading with the company’s companions and to have a great diversity of organic products. Through the implementation of this strategy, Marks & Spencer wants to create new jobs, counteract the adverse effects on climate and provide protection to animal rights in order to deliver high quality goods to the consumers in an affordable price range (Wilson, Gilligan, 2005).
Evaluation of the Organisation’s Current Governance Structure
Marks and Spencer have their own annual strategic plans which are a description of the intended activities used to increase and generate revenues and augment their brand name. Some of the risks factors though are involved in the current governance structure of Marks and Spencer including economic uncertainties, competitive factors and delay of project completion.

The corporate governance involves some business risks and liabilities which can be suppliers, customers, investors and litigation related (Pearce, Robinson, 2000). The risks of suppliers breaching the contract can delay the completion of ongoing projects and if the departments are unable to complete the plans within specified time period, the implementation of new strategies will become very difficult. Similarly, bad debts of consumers and bankruptcy of investors would demand files for bankruptcy protection in order to restructure as well as reemerge the debt free operations of the company.

If by chance, an employee commit fraud within the organization premises then implementation of internal controls can be used for safeguarding of a company’s assets (Dobni, Dobni, Luffman, 2001).
The governance chain of Marks and Spencer include managers, senior executives, and executive directors, board of directors, investors and beneficiaries. Managers assist the chairman in the promotion of high standards of corporate governance and ensure the flow of good information and reports related to simplification of targets. Senior executive directors and executive directors bring commercial and independent directions to the activities of board of directors in order to operate and plan board approved programs in retail chains of Marks and Spencer. Board of directors manages the company for the benefit of their shareholders while investors are focused on the accounts, reports and company’s briefings for trading and business.

This governance framework is working for the benefits of shareholders and stockholders in terms of high rate of returns, reduced risks for the company’s economy, encouragement of the entrepreneurs and inward investments, Strategy Implementation Plan closer monitoring of management, independence of the management and long term decisions horizons (Fogg, 1999).
Stakeholders are the individuals or groups that are dependent on an organization to accomplish the goals defined by them and on whom, the organization hinge on. For this reason, Marks & Spencer is putting efforts to meet the requirements of their stakeholders. According to the theories proposed by Johnson and Scholes “a company’s competitive advantages are the features that give permission to do best even in average industry extensive performance and free entry into the industry as a whole”. In the light of this theory, Strategy Implementation Plan it can be suggested that Marks & Spencer must have some defined abilities to make the implementation of climate change more noticeable. The company must find ways with unique competences that are hard for the rivals to copy and replicate. Effective use of skills to organize their procedures is also one of the changes required to assist with the delivery of new strategies.
There are three main generic changes that can be used for the implementation of desired strategies. The company can either become a low cost retailer or differentiate its services and products in such a way that its value among coursers enhance to an extent that they agree on paying premium prices (Anagnostopoulos, 2010). Marks & Spencer can also seek activities to achieve maintenance and increment of market shares with currently available products through combination of competitive pricing strategies, advertising sales promotion and by giving more resources to personal selling.

The company should also think about restructuring their market by driving their competitors out through hostile promotional campaigns reinforced by a pricing scheme designed to make the market repellent for their opponents. For better implementation of these strategies, analysing about company’s external environment, internal strengths and weaknesses is mandatory (Dobni, Dobni, Luffman, 2001). In such case, diverse and inventive culture of Marks & Spencer can proved to be a persuasive factor for new strategies implementation. For these reasons, some of the most intimate needs for Marks & Spencer include marketing, finance,  network business and customer care. All these objectives and aims can be achieved by this company though their improvement of customer focus/ management. According to theory proposed by Robert, Strategy Implementation Plan in order to bring changes for employment of new strategies Marks & Spencer should apply various approaches to target divisions which have been previously acknowledged and arrive at value propositions (Bowman, 2008).
Culture of the Organisation and Its Dominant Leadership Style
Marks and Spencer have different types of leadership styles in their working environments and this is why a variety of pros and cons exist between all these management classes and cultures. The objective of Marks and Spencer is the determination of the type of leadership styles that will benefit more to the company (Poirier, McCollum, 2006).
Depending upon the tasks and strategies which are to be achieved by Marks and Spencer, there are two types of leadership theories they follow i.e. E leadership theories and O leadership theories. Through E leadership, Strategy Implementation Plan without any deviation from traditional cultures, it creates and distributes the visions of organization and glues their workers together as well as direct and supervises the execution of strategic plans. They are implicated at structure, system and incentives levels of Marks and Spencer. On the other hand O leadership develops organizational capabilities and is implicated at level of culture, Strategy Implementation Plan experimentation and learning. Moreover a contingent style of leadership has also been observed in Marks and Spencer after which it has been implied that leaders will not be effective in all situations but except for ones that ensembles them the best (Fogg, 1999). Through contingency model, building of affiliations has been prioritized in order to avoid mistrust and insecurities within the organization. Likewise, Strategy Implementation Plan highly structured tasks were made independent of relationships and positional powers while low structured tasks were made possible by directive or participative leadership charms. The contingency theories have been implied in culture and leadership styles of Marks and Spencer as it has been supported by vast number of empirical studies and is very well defined. Some styles of strategic leadership in Marks and Spencer include education (for empowerment, undertaking and commitment), collaboration, participation, direction and intimidation.
The culture of an organization is defined as their ideas, customs, social behaviors, attitudes and behavioral characteristics. Culture of Marks and Spencer is a complex whole that encompasses knowledge, art, morals, and beliefs, law, customs and habits acquired by them. Culture of Marks and Spencer has influenced their world view, their priorities, understanding of strengths, weaknesses and threats. Principles of Marks and Spencer have also influenced the way they deal with their customers, make decisions and respond to presented challenges. Cultural frame of reference include national or regional (use of powerful cultural forces like climate, religion and history), organizational field (molded by industry, professions and sectors), functional/divisional (based of difference in nature of work). Culture values of Marks and Spencer have marked influence over strategy development through tighter control, reconstruction of approaches and adoption of new paradigms (Wilson, Gilligan, 2005).
Figure.1: Cultural frames

Figure2: Influence of Culture on Strategy Development
To understand the strategic change program, the change kaleidoscope can be used which has indicated different change scenarios that can be applied during programing such as reconstitution of original approaches and studies, combination of bottom up push with front line squads in a company’s executive board, collaboration and participation from all the departments of Marks and Spencer with an active involvement in the designing and modeling of company (Spencer, 2005).
Changes required in the Organisation’s Core Capabilities
Many changes are required in the core capabilities of Marks and Spencer in order to configure their value networking. Elimination of contemporary issues is very necessary along with the eradication of challenges faced during strategic implementation to achieve desired success rate (Grundy, 2005). Some contemporary issue involved in the strategic implementation of Marks and Spencer are surprises/shocks,/disasters, such as business resilience, identification and interpretation of signals, market driven disputes, planned and emergent flexibilities, uncertainties and risks involved, vision and leadership etc. Some of the challenges that can be faced by Marks and Spencer for the implementation of our chosen strategy can be the chiefly appeared problems which have not been identified before, insufficiency of the coordination required by the employer and employees, distracting activities from the anticipated implementation strategies, inadequacy of the information provided to the low level employees, requirement of more time than originally required, shortage of the information systems used, inability of the employees and workers for understanding the anticipated company’s goals, lack of company to reward people for execution of the plan and lack of acceptance of newly implemented strategies (Poirier, McCollum, 2006).

Figure3: Strategic Organizational Implication Analysis
In order to deal with the above defined challenges, Marks & Spencer should peruse three basic strategies i.e. differentiation, hybridization and low cost. The company must differentiate itself from competitors by positioning itself as a higher quality brand for money values. Moreover, they should also start specializing in becoming increasingly important for their financial core business. Marks & Spencer should try to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage in the industry as well, after considering the infrastructure of the firm, human resource management, procurement, marketing and sales. Through competitive advantage, a permission will be given to Marks & Spencer to do their best even in average industry’s far-reaching enactment into the industry as whole. Marks & Spencer must have some unique competences that can make them different from other companies in same industry (Grundy, 2005).

Figure4: Growth and Reenactment of Value Networking
Expansion method matrix can be used in this context since it has direct link with strategic management and implementation. This method is structured in a way that it explores the methods by which market prospects associated with strategy preferences might be accomplished.

Figure5: Expansion Method Matrix

Acquisition can be very fast and can easily reduce competition from current rivals by getting it sanctioned from governmental authorities; joint venture can obtain special expertise very quickly and can easily be used in places where acquisition cannot be utilized. Alliance can be used for building close contacts with associates so they can learn more about eachother while franchise can lower the risk ratio and grant exclusive territory to the company. Outsourcing can lower the cots supply of inputs and distinctive competences and can increase strategic flexibility of Marks and Spencer through technological change. It can also eliminate the threats and risks of excess capacity and help the firm keep its focus towards critical value creating activities and circumvent the company from out-of-date technological risks. Organic growth can enhance the knowledge and efficiency of an organization and can also help Marks and Spencer to spread its investment over time (Anagnostopoulos, 2010). Moreover, there are no availability constraints in organic growth while the company has its own strategic independences to interconnect. Licensing and franchising of Marks and Spencer can help in the settlement of contractual incomes by sale of production as well as marketing rights while keeping economic and financial exposure under control. Growth of revenues base is augmented through franchising but certain loss of control over its product may be experienced and this way the license can become a competitor and can be threat to brand name of Marks and Spencer. Alliances and joint ventures can share the investment risk of Marks and Spencer with their partners and combine their complementary resources and knowledge regarding retailing. Difficulty in identification of suitable partner and managing company’s relationship with them can be very difficult to upkeep (Pearce, Robinson, 2000).

Figure6: Alliances Evolution
There are no doubt many challenges in managing a global firm such as interaction of global production activities, efficiency gains from a global scale, development of national responsiveness and coping up with the diversity of an organizational culture. Various structures and strategies can be well-thought-out in this framework such as:
Functional Structure: It is organized by function and channel all the information upwards and s very suitable for specialized and small firms like of Marks and Spencer.

Figure7: Functional Structure
Multidivisional Structure: It is a simple and straightforward setup that can offer distinctive organizational structure.

Figure8: Multidivisional Structure
Worldwide Area Divisional Structure: It demands high need for local responsiveness and little pressure for the coordination of activities for the transfer of competences internationally.

Figure9: Worldwide Area Division Structure
Worldwide Product Division Structure: It can be used by Marks and Spencer to have strong pressure to coordinate their activities to deed experience and location markets.

Figure10: Worldwide Product Division Structure
Transnational and Project Based Structures: Translational strategic approaches can help Marks and Spencer to combine local responses along with high global coordination in order to gain advantages like knowledge sharing and network management. Project based structures on the other hand, can be used for team creation and undertaking of the assigned tasks i.e. internal or external contracts etc.
The above defined structures for reconfiguration of value networking of Marks and Spencer and for assisting of newly progressed strategies can be chosen through specialized communications and cultures, terminated grading, speed of change and creation of relevant knowledge (Bowman, 2008).

Figure11: Comparison of Structures
How Changes Recommended Can Be Consolidated By New Structures, Systems and Configurations to Assist With Delivery of the New Strategy
For a very long time, systems and structures are considered to be separate from strategy but revising structures during delivery of new strategies is always a way to improve competence, promotion of teamwork, creation of synergic working and reduction of operation cost. Therefore the changes discussed previously can be merged with different systems, structures and configurations to implement change in Marks & Spencer (Baraka, 2014).
Marks & Spencer has now come to an end of their three year programme to revolutionize retail marketing and is now focusing towards building the foundations that they have laid initially. Through above defined changes, Marks & Spencer will continue to drive improvements in the range of their clothing sections and will majorly focus on quality and style both. Looking ahead of time they will also be able to work on innovation and handiness down the chain while making sure that their customer’s insights are being satisfied. Changes will be made in Marks & Spencer’s sourcing operations which will augment the sum of their direct sourcing particularly in Asian countries (Dobni, Dobni, Luffman, 2001). Marks & Spencer can also use modern methods of management including planning, buyer research, product revolution, personal management and staff training etc. Maintaining a strong organizational structure will also assist Marks & Spencer in delivery…