1
Lydia Steinhofer
Global Human Resource Management
Test 2
IMS 4330 Part One Short Topic Essay
July 31, 2014
Marks & Spencer's Plan A
About Marks and Spencer
Marks and Spencer is a major British multinational retailer headquartered in the City of Westminster, London. It specializes in the selling of clothing, home products and luxury food items. Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer founded M&S in 1884 in Leeds, England. M&S has grown from a single market stall to operating in over 50 territories worldwide. (http://corporate.marksandspencer.com).
Until recently, M&S was the largest retailer in the UK with 12% of the UK's market share and 4% of the UK's food market. It has 798 stores to date and 455 international stores with 54 international territories. There are over 250,000 workers that help produce products carried by M&S.
M&S serves approximately 21 million customers every week. They have over 200 suppliers and 20,000 farms with whom they do business with.
It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a Constituent member of the FTSE, (Financial Times Stock Exchange) pronounced "futsi". In 2006 Britain passed The Britain 2006 Companies Act, which requires businesses to report on their Corporate Social Responsibility, (CSR), records.
Subsequently, in 2007 M&S launched an ambitious corporate wide Plan A. Plan A was launch as a five year plan that addressed some of the biggest social and environmental challenges with 100 concrete commitments that it aspired to achieve by 2012. Marks and Spencer added 80 more commitments in 2010.
Plan A reflects a Proactive Strategy that endeavors to do more than is required by in CSR and supported by managers who increasingly view CSR as a worth while endeavor. These are just some of the commitments it pursued in 2007:
Climate Change; Becoming carbon neutral for...