Strategy at M+S

The BBC website is so handy for giving us terrific 500 word summaries of what’s what in the Business world. Most people with an interest in the subject will be curious to see and hear what one of the UK’s major retailers sees as the way forwards over the next few months and years.

You can go straight to the story and video clip, but here’s a summary:

Up to £900m is to be invested over the next three years in new and existing stores to try to boost profits. Some clothing brands are to dropped or brought back under the main M&S label.

In food, the aim is to become a “specialist high-quality retailer”. Key changes will include cutting the range of non-M&S branded foodstuffs - only recently introduced to the stores - from 400 lines to 100. These would mainly consist of products which the company itself could not replicate - such as Marmite. They will also be adding another 100 “distinctive international brands” which will be exclusive to M&S.

Longer term, the company plans to add to its 337 stores overseas in order to reduce its dependency on the UK economic cycle. The hope is that if the UK economy is in difficulties, profits could be supported from growth elsewhere. The new boss told the BBC: “For the mid-term we believe we should be more international. We want to put more stores down in places like India, where we already are, but could be stronger.” He also said the company was thinking of opening more stores in China.

The company has a growing 11.2% market share of the UK clothing market and it reported half-year pre-tax profits of £348.8m, up from £306.7m last year.