The example for Marks and Spencer is about the business’s corporate social responsibility. This is basically to do with things such as carbon emissions, natural resources, acid stripping, rising sea levels, melting ice caps, forest fires, over consumption, destruction of habitats and the business’s global footprint.
Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term: which achieves advantages to the organisation through its configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfil stakeholder expectations.
Resources are skills, assets, finance, relationships, technical competence and facilities. Why do companies choose to be corporately socially responsible?
- Brand Image – The public are ever more aware of the environment and the impact the human race has had to the environment. In reducing the global footprint will make people feel better when purchasing goods/services from the business. It can be used as a USP.
- Because they actually care – Some businesses actually care for the environment more than just making money.
Marks and Spencer
CSR can be seen as extremely influential to the success of a business making it essential to the strategy implemented. Marks and Spencer have created their own CSR being ‘Plan A’. This involves seven pillars which are based around reducing waste, carbon emissions and improving the lives of everyone associated in some way with Marks and Spencer. This strategy has become extremely successful into creating a vivid ‘eco-friendly’ brand awareness for &S. Many businesses feel the need to adopt CSR to make consumers happier which results in an increase in sales. No matter if M&S want to be eco-friendly or not, the CSR plan has helped to label them as a company that cares. This will give customers the stereotype when shopping at M&S that the money they will have given to M&S will be used in a beneficial way to the environment and world.
As well as increased positive brand awareness, the plan will also help to reduce fixed and variable costs. If M&S are using less energy, materials and wasting less, the running of the business will in turn decrease too. This highlights the fact that social reporting is not always essential because the customers will see the impact of the CSR campaign from the price of your products (that is if you keep the profit margin the same and past down the cost savings to the customers). Social reporting is for business that like to show off how well they are doing just like M&S. They want to give you every possible reason to shop at their stores and not of competitors.
What you need to understand if you use Marks & Spencer as a BUSS4 example is that they have adopted a CSR strategy to gain an ethical USP over competitors. However, the point to also make is that without a strong advertising campaign to promote their new strategy, the impact of the CSR of M&S will be minimal. A strong part of a CSR plan is to make sure the customers know what you are doing. You need to tell them that you care. Therefore, a strong advertising campaign is needed when updating a CSR to make clear to the world your aims and objectives environmentally.
