PEST analysis for M&S and Oxfam.

Authors Avatar

Marius Liatukas                     Unit 1: Exploring business activity

Mr. Yamson

Task 5 Marks & Spencer:

PESTE analysis:

Marketers use PEST analysis in order to investigate the outside environment in which an organization is operating. PEST stands for:

  • Political – factors affect the activity of the business. Political developments are generally out of the control of an organization, but it needs to forecast and anticipate change and then react accordingly. The development of the European Union has provided both opportunities and threats to British organizations. Its recent enlargement meant the market for British products expanded by 45 million customers.
  • Economic – influences look at how the performance of the economy impacts on organizations. All economies go through cycles of prosperity, recession and recovery. The business cycle is especially important because of its direct effect on consumer and business spending. During times of prosperity, both consumers and business customers buy more goods and services.
  • Social – environment describes the characteristics of society, the people who live in that society and their values and beliefs. The first area of study tends to focus on the population demographics revealing information about size, gender, ethnic groups, income levels, educational attainment, occupations and family structure. This information is very useful to marketers in predicting the size of markets for many products from food to clothe.
  • Technological – developments affect many organizations. Growing ownership of computers and the influence of the Internet is allowing people to buy virtually anything without having to leave their homes. Mobile phones are also now being used for advertisements.

Political Factors M&S:

Political factors affect M&S in a lot of ways. Some of those ways are explained below:

The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 - makes it illegal for anyone to be directly or indirectly discriminated against or harassed on their grounds of gender. It applies to all aspects of employment, training, treatment at work, dismissal and redundancy. There are some expectations such as acting and live in jobs, but however these are rare.

Marks & Spencer follows the Sex Discrimination Law in order no to get sued. However if M&S choose not to follow this act they will get sued which will mean they will have more expenses in the business. Also if M&S also get sued they will be in the newspapers probably all around the world which means M&S will then end up loosing their customers as well as publicity which will also go into their expenses.  

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 - protects people with disability against discrimination in employment, when obtaining goods and services, buying/renting land or property and gaining access to business premises. Employers must make reasonable adjustments to the workplace to enable a disabled person to do the job. Public bodies must have policies and action plans to tackle discrimination and no employer must treat a disabled person less favourably than able bodied people without justification. Discrimination is not divided into “direct” or “indirect” but is based on the grounds that less favourable treatment cannot be justified.

Join now!

Marks & Spencer must follow the Disability Discrimination Law. The things that M&S do to follow this law are they have lifts in all of their stores if the stores have stairs, they have lowered cash tills which is easier for the disabled person to reach, they also have electric wheel chairs which are good for the disabled people if they can not walk. If M&S did not follow this law they would get sued and loose profit from the business.

National Minimum Wage Act 1998 – the minimum wage in the UK is £5.73 for all adult ...

This is a preview of the whole essay