Marks & Spencer are a market leader in the UK clothing industry, this is the business which has the majority sales in a certain market, decisions this business makes are likely to be followed, or at least scrutinised by other businesses.
Stakeholders are groups, people and anything else that has an interest in performance the business. Marks & Spencer have many stakeholders, such as, staff, consumers, pressure groups and the government; the government would be interested in the business because they receive tax from the business and may need to regulate the performance of Marks & Spencer. Pressure groups are stakeholders for Marks & Spencer, they look at the way the business is affecting those who cannot speak up for themselves, such as wildlife, if Marks & Spencer wanted to build a new store on Greenbelt land, wildlife pressure groups could protest against this and force the local authorities to make the business build elsewhere.
One reason in favour of why other businesses should follow the Marks & Spencer strategy is that they would become more ethical and this would make the whole market trade more ethically. In addition, there is a trend emerging within consumers that they are starting to care more about how their products are produce; they are beginning to consider whether products or services they consume are ‘fair-trade’ or ‘ethical’. Marks & Spencer would attract a bigger customer base, and therefore a bigger market share, replicating this may improve a business’s market share.
On the other hand, it may not be a good idea to follow this because people who trade unethically currently will have to spend a lot more money than Marks & Spencer on sourcing ethical products, for example, Marks & Spencer have always had a better reputation for respecting ethics than Primark, it would cost Primark more money and time to improve their ethics to the level that Marks & Spencer have.
Budget clothing stores and companies that are not as established as Marks & Spencer, such as Primark or Peacocks will find it harder to become more ethical as they work on small profit margins, becoming ethical would mean their costs are likely to increase, which would take a bigger cut out of their already small profits and maybe bring them down into losses. The fact that the price of budget clothing would go up could cause inflation as there are less cheap goods available, causing cost-push inflation. They will also lose links with cheap suppliers, and this might be seen as unethical because the suppliers would make employees redundant to balance the books.
Marks & Spencer will improve their image and popularity through this change, as people will see them as taking the moral high ground, competitors may be falling behind in these terms, they may decide to join to stop getting left behind. Climate change is also another thing the public are considering increasingly, and how industry is affecting it, although clothes may not be bad for the environment directly, they can affect the environment through the delivery of these clothes; clothes coming on plane from China are going to make more of an effect on the environment than from Yorkshire. The way Marks & Spencer food may be looked at too, because some ingredients may be sourced unethically, such as some coffee, some coffee beans are picked by slaves, Marks & Spencer may want to distance itself from this type of supplier as it would be against their strategy.
One reason why competitors should not follow Marks & Spencer’s lead is that some would argue that climate change is not a huge issue for the clothing industry and they cannot radically change their ways until the transport industry have technological advances, which allow them to transport supplies without leaving as big a footprint on the earth.
Recruitment of staff will improve if a business copies Marks & Spencer’s stance on ethics, because employees will not feel as though they are part of a huge global corporation, which has a negative effect on its workers and other stakeholders. It would also benefit the business in the long run, despite the initial cost.
Another reason against following the trend of becoming ethical is that it may conflict with shareholder’s aims and objectives, they may be out for a short term profit, but Marks & Spencer’s plans are definitely long term. In addition, there is no guarantee that if they do become more ethical like Marks & Spencer, the consumer will like the new ethical products, it limit’s their choice.
I think that other businesses should follow Marks & Spencer’s lead and become more ethical as it would improve the company’s image, as they are not exploiting people in third world countries, which has moved it’s way into the media spotlight recently, with more people considering how ethical the products have been sourced especially, this means more people would like to buy ethical products, which means this is a new segment of the market, and people who do not offer this may get left with a smaller market to sell to.
It is also important to try to give back to the environment and communities by trading ethically and sensibly, this will help them to stay in touch and not lose ground with the market leader, Marks & Spencer.
On the other hand, they cannot do much in terms of climate change, as the technology is not there to reduce the effect, such as carbon emissions from vans, radically; there can only be a small improvement, this may not be seen as worth it, due the fact that it costs a lot of money.
It is not advisable for small, new businesses to attempt this as they may not survive the competition, bigger companies are able to use their economies of scale to reduce the average cost to them, thus it will affect smaller businesses more.
This is very much a long term project, and businesses need to look to the future and eventually adopt Marks & Spencer’s policies, as they will benefit from customer satisfaction, and they can grow and gain market share, which is the main strategy of the business, all other objectives or aims are secondary to this.
