• Posted on November 29, 2022
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BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample

Introduction

The following is a consultancy management report based on Marks and Spencer Group plc and its operations and aims to reflect upon the operations that determine its organisational performance management.

The study focuses on the different aspects of organisations operations like communication with stakeholders, quality management and others that can have a clear impact on the organisation performance in the market.
Based on the observation and analysis of these different operations of the organisation, a set of recommendations provided aiming to improve the organisational performance management of Marks & Spencer.

Findings and Analysis

Performance measurement and management

Performance measurement and management are done by Marks & Spencer by collecting information regarding the performance of their employees during appraisal.

Performance management is also measured by comparing the data and information regarding the company’s sales and revenue (DeNisi and Murphy, 2017). http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment SampleIts organisation also collects and considers the people provided by the consumer, which plays an important role in identifying the areas where the organisation is lacking performance.

Furthermore, the organisation also trains the leaders and managers at different levels to clearly communicate the goals and objectives of the organisation to their respective subordinates so that workflow can be made as efficient as possible.

However, when it comes to managing the performance, the organisation identifies the current performance levels of the earth employees and managers based upon their given goals and objectives (Schleicher et al. 2018).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample

The employees and managers who are found underperforming are provided training based upon the skills and areas that they have enabled to show any kind of development. This would allow organisations to regulate the overall performance of the entire workforce by constantly training and motivating the workforce so that organisational goals and objectives can be achieved.

Apart from that, the organisation also involves other departments in improving the overall performance of the organisation in the market for instance the marketing department is involved in improving the market presence and brand positioning of Marks & Spencer. Similarly, the HR manager is involved to identify training requirements that can be provided to new recruits or existing employees to increase their performance while also monitoring their current farmer’s levels (Schleicher et al. 2019).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample

Communicating performance to stakeholders

The organisation has different stakeholders and communicating the performance of the organisation to them is equally important for different purposes. The managers and leaders of the organisation and different levels are one of the key internal stakeholders of the company and communicating the organisation’s performance to them helps them in identifying how well the organisation is doing in the market under their supervision (Tseng and Levy, 2019).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample

Moreover, the investors and shareholders of the organisation are also one of the most important stakeholders in the organisation as communicating organisational performance to them helps them in gaining their confidence. For instance, if the organisation is performing well in the market and this information is communicated to the shareholders and investors of the company then it is likely that the investments can be gained from the investors and shareholders of the company.

Furthermore, continuous support from investors and shareholders also helps in increasing the stock price of the organisation, which is another aspect that helps in improving the organisation’s performance in the market.

Moreover, customers are also an important part of the organisations external stakeholders and maintaining an appropriate relationship with them requires the organisation to communicate their performance to them (Franco‐Santos and Otley, 2018).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample If the organisation is able to communicate that the company is performing well in the market then they can gain the confidence of the consumers and this would effectively increase their brand reputation and brand loyalty (Tseng and Levy, 2019).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample

This plays a major role in allowing Marks & Spencer to formulate their brand positioning statement, which can effectively help the company in attracting new customers, and maintaining the already existing consumer base. Henceforth, communicating the performance of the organisation is directly related to improving the reputation of the organisation in the market and Marks & Spencer continues to do that by targeting consumers from different demographics with the help of the marketing and brand positioning strategies (Tweedie et al. 2019).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample

The suppliers of the organisation are also a part of Marks & Spencer’s external stakeholders and communicating the performance to them helps in improving the quality of products prepared from them.

Marks & Spencer sources and requires many raw materials from different suppliers and depending upon the quality of these raw materials the organisation’s performance and satisfaction levels of the consumers are determined (Schleicher et al. 2019).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample

Therefore, if the organisation receives complaints regarding the quality of their products, they can communicate such information to the suppliers so that the quality of raw materials can be improved. Furthermore, communicating the performance of the company also helps in building a stable and transparent relationship with suppliers, which continuously motivates them to work alongside the organisation in the long run (Refer to Appendix 1).

Risk management

Risk management is another area of concern when it comes to organisational performance management. Marks & Spencer operate in a highly competitive market environment and in this regard, it is necessary for the organisation to consider all kinds of market risks that they might encounter (Pulakos et al. 2019).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample

Some of the major risks that can effectively deteriorate the organisation’s performance are financial risks, internal conflicts, lack of supply and many more.

All these risks are required to be identified by the organisation and it is necessary for the company to come up with necessary solutions and mitigation strategies that can be implemented so that either they can be avoided or their impacts can be reduced.

The organisation needs to formulate an appropriate risk management strategy and plan for the company by identifying all the existing risks the organisation faces both in the internal and external spheres (BBC News, 2020). http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample

One of the major reasons due to which the organisation has been struggling in the market is that the consumers have reflected that the company does not appeal to any particular generation. Furthermore, the organisation has also been accused of not listening to the feedback of the consumers, which has drastically reduced their reputation in the market (BBC News, 2020).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample

Even though the organisation constantly states that the feedback obtained from the consumers is important to them, this occurrence reflects quite the opposite.

Quality management and improvement

Quality management of the organisation requires constant monitoring of the company’s services and products. This allows the company to maintain the satisfaction level of their consumers as well as helps them to maintain their position in the market (Raffoni et al. 2018).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample

However, some recent occurrences have reflected that the organisation needs to invest more in their stores and Marks & Spencer have often found to make bad decisions, which have again added to their constant struggle to maintain their position in the market (BBC News, 2020).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample

Financial performance

Marks & Spencer has been able to maintain distinctive financial feasibility throughout the years by serving as a reputed retail organisation across the globe. The company has been operating with over 1000 Marks & Spencer stores situated across the UK market along with 472 international stores operating in different countries and markets (Sabanoglu, 2021). http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample

This extensive presence of the company across both the domestic and international market has been reading a greater value to recognise the organisational financial feasibility. The company was able to achieve around 10.18 million GBP revenue during the previous year (Sabanoglu, 2021).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample

However, the ongoing covid-19 pandemic situation had forced the organisation to experience a gradual decline in its revenue generation. Due to this reason, Marks & Spencer achieved around 9.17 billion GBP revenue during the year ending in April 2021, which is also considered an 11.9% decrease as compared with the previous year circumstances (Sabanoglu, 2021).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample

Figure 1: Marks and Spencer revenue from 2010 to 2021 by region

(Source: Sabanoglu, 2021)

The above-mentioned figure also illustrates the effectiveness of Marks & Spencer as a renowned global retailer. The company has been able to achieve distinctive revenue from both the domestic and international markets, which can be noticed in the above figure.

Despite experiencing the economic downfall due to the covid-19 outbreak, Marks & Spencer has been able to achieve around 789.4 million GBP revenue throughout the international markets (Sabanoglu, 2021).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample Apart from that, Marks & Spencer also registered a loss before tax of 209.4 million GBP during the year ending in April 3, 2021 (Sabanoglu, 2021).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample

Customer and client perspectives

A customer-centric approach has been undertaken by Marks & Spencer as an integral part of enlarging their business reputation and positively influencing consumer purchasing behaviour.

Marks & Spencer offers a wide range of product portfolios to their potential consumers, which includes food items to general merchandise such as beauty and personal care products, clothing, home accessories and others. In order to obtain distinctive customer and client attraction, Marks & Spencer had paid attention to providing quality products and services (Sabanoglu, 2021).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample

Due to this reason, the company is renowned for its high-quality products especially concerning the food section. In accordance with a survey conducted in the UK, it was notified that 67% of the respondents signified the quality products from Marks & Spencer, where only 6% of people failed the achievement of value for money while shopping at the organisation (Sabanoglu, 2021).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample This statistic reveals the organisational intention of improving their customer service under the lights of providing quality products.

The provision of quality products acted beneficially in terms of enlarging consumer attraction. Due to this reason, Marks & Spencer achieved distinctive customer satisfaction by an average of 23% increment after rolling out an international customer service listening and insights program (Cameron, 2018).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample In this regard, the division of Marks & Spencer for investing into a fresh voice of customer (VOC) approach and software application can be considered which was eternally driven with the desire of achieving customer insides in a faster and comprehensive manner.

Moreover, the consideration of mystery shopper programs and others have also added a greater value to enhance customer and client attraction for the company (Cameron, 2018).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample Similarly, Marks & Spencer has been offering discounts and vouchers for their potential customers and clients by using a point-of-sale system where the customers are allowed to access a discount code.

All the mentioned aspects initiate distinctive improvement in customer and client satisfaction from Marks & Spencer’s perspective.

People perspectives

Expensive human resource management concerns have been undertaken by Marks and Spencer as an integral part of maintaining their business effectiveness across the operating market.

The human resource management activities in Marks & Spencer were usually conducted with a highly customised and complex system. In order to empower the organisational HRM, Marks & Spencer initiated to alter their “human capital management systems” with a one-stop portal having better reliability and accessibility. In this regard, a “dynamic HR hub” was considered by Marks & Spencer to realise their vision of excellent talent management.

The company initiated a partnership with TCS to deploy a host of emerging HR features. Marks & Spencer upgraded their “Oracle PeopleSoft human capital management system” along with implementing a dynamic portal namely “PeopleSoft interaction hub” (TCS, 2021). http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment SampleThese aspects are likely to act as a gateway to several major applications on behalf of Marks & Spencer.

On the other hand, the entire HR functionalities of the organisation are usually integrated under the lights of a convenient and “user-friendly single sign-on feature”.

Due to this reason, the potential employees of Marks & Spencer are able to easily access and manage valuable HR information along with their personal data (TCS, 2021). http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment SampleThe inclusion of a dynamic HR portal has been helping the organisation to directly publish their HR data reports on a standardised portal.

Moreover, the transition of the organisational HRM system with the inclusion of a robust Oracle database has been benefiting the company with increasing IT efficiency, employee satisfaction, improved system performance and others.

Business ethics and CSR

A distinctive code of ethics and behaviours have been established by Marks and Spencer as an integral part of their commitment to the organisational core values of integrity and innovation, inspiration and others.

A set of different principles and values can also be recognised within the business ethics code of conduct for Marks and Spencer, which reveals the aspects of maintaining human rights, avoiding bribery and corruption along conflicts of interest and others.

Moreover, the equal opportunities policy, bullying and harassment policy, disciplinary policy and others are also outlined by the organisation along with health and safety regulations at workplace, human rights policy, modern slavery statement and others (Marks and Spencer, 2021).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample

Attractive corporate social responsibilities are also fulfilled by Marks and Spencer while associating with charity and community funding donations through the organisational local stores.

Moreover, the organisation also donates their expired food to charitable organisations to empower a community food network. The company also emphasizes fundraising practices as an integral part of their corporate campaign for one of their charity partners.

For instance, the context of breakthrough breast cancer can be undertaken. Environmental welfare is also highlighted by Marks & Spencer through their initiative of energy reduction by 25% and developing low carbon products and services (Fibre2fashion, 2021).http://BUSN11080 Managing Organizational Health Assignment Sample

Recommendation

Based on the findings of the company’s operations in the market it can be recommended that the organisation needs to take steps which would help them in appealing to specific generations.

As the target and segmentation strategy of Marks & Spencer is not at par with other organisations or competitors in the market; hence, they need to develop a responsive feedback mechanism. This would rather help Marks & Spencer in addressing the complaints and feedback provided by the consumers.

Apart from that, it has also been seen that stores of Marks & Spencer are not appealing to the consumers; therefore, in-store advertisements and investments are needed to be made. Additionally, the decision-making patterns also need to be improved; so that Marks & Spencer can include more individuals in the decision-making committee to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their decisions.

Marks & Spencer management should look for further empowering their online services to mitigate the current market trends, which can enhance their financial profitability.

Moreover, the company management should pay attention to offer loyalty schemes to their potential consumers to ensure extensive consumer and client attraction. This loyalty scheme might also include favourable discounts and gifts. In this concern, increasing customer retention rate might also be achieved by the organisation.

Potential employees within Marks & Spencer are likely to be treated with an attractive performance appraisal system, which might also add a fair value to their human resource management. It can also act positively to enhance employee dedication and motivation based on which Marks & Spencer would be widely benefited with a motivated workforce.

Conclusion

The overall report has provided a deliberate understanding concerning the performance management and relational aspects on behalf of Marks & Spencer. Distinctive performance management and measurement concerns can be notified within the organisation with flexible stakeholder communication and attractive risk management concerns.

A decent financial standing has been insured by the company with attractive revenue generation across the domestic and international markets. The provision of fresh voice of customer approach and mystery shopper programs are also helping the company to empower their customer satisfaction score.

The inclusion of Oracle PeopleSoft human capital management system can be notified in Marks and Spencer, which has been enhancing their human resource management concerns. Several business ethics-related policies are also defined in this case including the prospects of human Rights policy, equal opportunities policy and others.

 

References

BBC News, 2020. M&S: Five reasons the retailer is struggling. [Online]. BBC. Available at: <https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53478403> [Accessed 3 July 2021]

Cameron, N., 2018. What Marks & Spencer did to boost customer satisfaction globally. [Online]. Available at: <https://www.cmo.com.au/article/633573/what-marks-spencer-did-boost-customer-satisfaction-globally/> [Accessed 3 July 2021]

DeNisi, A.S. and Murphy, K.R., 2017. Performance appraisal and performance management: 100 years of progress?. Journal of applied psychology, 102(3), p.421.

Fibre2fashion, 2021. Corporate social responsibility. [Online]. Available at: <http://fashiongear.fibre2fashion.com/brand-story/mands/corporate.asp> [Accessed 3 July 2021]

Franco‐Santos, M. and Otley, D., 2018. Reviewing and theorizing the unintended consequences of performance management systems. International Journal of Management Reviews, 20(3), pp.696-730.

Helmold, M. and Samara, W., 2019. Progress in Performance Management: Industry Insights and Case Studies on Principles, Application Tools, and Practice. Springer.

Marks and Spencer, 2021. Code of Ethics and Behaviours. [Online]. Available at: <https://corporate.marksandspencer.com/documents/plan-a-our-approach/code-of-ethics.pdf> [Accessed 3 July 2021]

Pulakos, E.D., Mueller-Hanson, R. and Arad, S., 2019. The evolution of performance management: Searching for value. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 6, pp.249-271.

Raffoni, A., Visani, F., Bartolini, M. and Silvi, R., 2018. Business performance analytics: exploring the potential for performance management systems. Production Planning & Control, 29(1), pp.51-67.

Sabanoglu, T., 2021. Profit before tax of the Marks & Spencer group worldwide from 2014 to 2021. [Online]. Available at: <https://www.statista.com/statistics/872854/marks-and-spencer-profit-before-tax-worldwide-uk/> [Accessed 3 July 2021]

Sabanoglu, T., 2021. Revenue of Marks & Spencer from 2010 to 2021, by region. [Online]. Available at: <https://www.statista.com/statistics/413332/group-revenue-marks-and-spencer-united-kingdom-uk-international/> [Accessed 3 July 2021]

Sabanoglu, T., 2021. Revenue of Marks & Spencer worldwide from 2010 to 2021. [Online]. Available at: <https://www.statista.com/statistics/413349/group-revenue-marks-and-spencer-mands/> [Accessed 3 July 2021]

Schleicher, D.J., Baumann, H.M., Sullivan, D.W. and Yim, J., 2019. Evaluating the effectiveness of performance management: A 30-year integrative conceptual review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 104(7), p.851.

Schleicher, D.J., Baumann, H.M., Sullivan, D.W., Levy, P.E., Hargrove, D.C. and Barros-Rivera, B.A., 2018. Putting the system into performance management systems: A review and agenda for performance management research. Journal of Management, 44(6), pp.2209-2245.

Tcs, 2021. M&S’ vision of revamping HR was hampered by complex, customized systems. [Online]. Available at: <https://www.tcs.com/marks-spencer-upgrades-hcm-platform-to-optimize-hr-process> [Accessed 3 July 2021]

Tseng, S.T. and Levy, P.E., 2019. A multilevel leadership process framework of performance management. Human Resource Management Review, 29(4), p.100668.

Tweedie, D., Wild, D., Rhodes, C. and Martinov‐Bennie, N., 2019. How does performance management affect workers? Beyond human resource management and its critique. International Journal of Management Reviews, 21(1), pp.76-96.

Appendix 1: Stakeholder transparency of M&S

(https://corporate.marksandspencer.com/documents/plan-a-our-approach/code-of-ethics.pdf)