Political Science

Summary
In todays highly global and competitive environment, organization faces critical challenges that affect its ability to survive successfully. Marks  Spencer is one such organization that has not been able to regain its position in the international market due to several problems, mainly the conflicts arising with stakeholders, ineffective human resource management and quality issues. To meet these challenges, the research analyses the ways through which it can strengthen its position and survive in the global market successfully. There are leadership styles that are highly important in achieving organizational success through effective leader. Marks  Spencer faces barriers that affect its ability to redesign its organizational structure effectively but coping up strategies are evaluated in the research to meet current problems occurring at Marks  Spencer.

Introduction -Marks and Spencer
Marks  Spencer is United Kingdoms chain of retailers that provides great value for products and services such as clothing, home items and food. Marks  Spencer stores in UK exceed buy 600 and above 278 stores worldwide. But it has been facing serious challenges over the past years and has been unable to retain its customers due to intense global competition and lack of excellence in managing its relations with the stakeholders. This research will aim to identify three major challenges faced by Marks  Spencer and how the company can meet these challenges effectively by overcoming the barriers affecting its implementation process.

3 Major ProblemsChallenges
The three major challenges faced by Marks  Spencer are discussed below which are mainly stakeholders conflicts, ineffective human resource management and quality concern.

Stakeholders Conflicts
The major problem faced by Marks  Spencer is the conflicts arising with the stakeholders particularly, the employees, customers and suppliers. Employees at MS have been highly de-motivated which leads to low performance level and inability to meet the global challenges. Employees are one of the most important parts of an organization and focusing upon their performance is very necessary (Hall, Jones.   HYPERLINK httpwww.amazon.co.ukexecobidossearch-handle-url_encodingUTF8search-typessindexbooks-ukfield-authorCarlo20Raffo Raffo, 2000).

At Marks  Spencer employees performance and output is not up to the standard due to low morale, training needs etc. Secondly, the customers who are the soul of an organization as meeting customer needs and demands today means capturing a larger customer base which can make the company survive successfully. But unfortunately, Marks  Spencer cannot meet their demands efficiently and number of complaints are increasing significantly affecting its brand image and switching of its customers to other international companies.

Thirdly, Marks  Spencer places orders worldwide for its inventory at the retail stores and hence it has been unsuccessful in maintaining positive supplier relationship. This has led to the loss of efficient suppliers and an opportunity for competitors to take advantage of the situation. These are basically three major conflicts faced by Marks  Spencer in its stakeholders relationships (Turban,  HYPERLINK httpwww.amazon.comsrefntt_athr_dp_sr_2_encodingUTF8sortrelevanceranksearch-aliasbooksfield-authorDave20King King, Lee   HYPERLINK httpwww.amazon.comsrefntt_athr_dp_sr_4_encodingUTF8sortrelevanceranksearch-aliasbooksfield-authorDennis20Viehland  Viehland, 2004).

Quality Concern
Marks  Spencer offers affordable yet value for money products and services to its customers with the aim to provide superior quality in terms of products and services as well as customer service. In last few years, Marks  Spencer was unable to maintain its quality due to inefficient inventory management and quality control system. Providing superior quality is the key towards success in todays global market because there is intense competition and customers expectations are increasing day by day (Hall, Jones.   HYPERLINK httpwww.amazon.co.ukexecobidossearch-handle-url_encodingUTF8search-typessindexbooks-ukfield-authorCarlo20Raffo Raffo, 2000).

Ineffective Human resource management
This is one of the most crucial problems faced by Marks  Spencer. Human resource management is the way workforce is managed effectively to achieve organizational short term and long-term goals. Also, to survive in todays highly competitive environment, achieving sustainable competitive advantage is the major emphasis of organizations. But, the human resource management has been unable to create a pro-active, responsible, motivated and innovation workforce that creates non-imitable value for the organization (Sana  Shah, 2008).

3 OrganizationalStructural Changes
The following are the three organizational changes discussed to meet the current challenges faced by the company, which are organizational design, organizational culture and effective human resource management.

Organizational Design
Organization design creates a systematic framework that gives life to the organization. The organizational design and structure are both closely linked together as they provide a framework for the organization through which it carries out its business operations. In todays highly competitive global environment, Marks  Spencer needs to focus upon their organizational design to achieve effective running of business operations. This will help to define the organizational human resource structure in the organization so that smooth flow of responsibilities and communication takes place and ultimately helps in meeting the challenges successfully (Hsu  Tsuen, 2000).    
       
To meet the challenges of the global environment, Marks  Spencer should pay attention to the following factors that are adaptability to changing trends, innovation, speed and flexibility. All these factors lead to rational business operations where cost minimization and profit maximization is the basic rule. Todays modern approach suggests that organizational design should be integrated with innovation so that it can achieve continuous improvements in its business operations. Marks  Spencer can meet the current challenges by turning into learning organization, which aims to adopt the latest approaches for managing its resources and planning the futures uncertainties (Sana  Shah, 2008).

Human resource management
Effective human resource management is the key towards success as people are the real assets of an organization and dealing with them effectively leads to sustainable competitive advantage. For Marks  Spencer, this is the most important and effective approach to deal with its problems, as employees can lead to the achievement of goals by their effort, performance and providing superior quality and service to the customers. Here, HRM approaches such as employee empowerment, HR development and motivation at work should be the main concern to improve the current situation. This way the quality issues occurring at Marks  Spencer will be dealt and again it will be able to maintain its brand image and customer loyalty will increase (Hsu  Tsuen, 2000).

Organizational Culture
The organizations cultures define its system and environment where business activities take place.  To meet the challenges, Marks  Spencer should develop a strong organizational culture that brings positive changes in the behavior of employees as well effective performance results (Luthans, 2003).
The organizational culture of Marks  Spencer needs to be changed from centralized to decentralization so that decision-making can be taken by its different franchises and stores around the world. This is because top down authority channels are rigid and do not focus upon different strategies that are required for different countries and segments of the market. Moreover, the organizational culture at Marks  Spencer must focus upon Cultural Intelligence, which is the tool used to minimize the conflicts and complexities arising due to cultural differences and maximize the benefits and creativity occurring by the collaboration of different cultures. This helps to survive successfully in the global market as well as in the human resource development (Hall Jones, 2000).

Also, it should promote and maintain its organizational culture by conducting various activities such environmental contributions where environment friendliness of the company is promoted which increases the customer loyalty. Moreover, empowerment of employees should be encouraged by conducting seminars for training and HR development to enhance the morale in the organization. Organizational culture that focuses upon team building, employee empowerment and customer service oriented will help Marks  Spencer to successfully deal with the current problems that it has been facing.

Model Used
The human resource management model will play the major role of implementing these changes at Marks  Spencer. First of all, organizational planning is required so that effective HR planning can take place. Its main focus will be upon redesigning the organizational design where organizational culture will also be changed to achieve desired goals. Hence, human resource model will develop a learning, flexible and networked organizational design where two-way communication takes place for maintaining positive relationships with external as well as internal stakeholders. The objectives of both the stakeholders and the company should not be at conflict, which can only occur if a model consists of effective planning where each business activity is systematically dealt (Hsu  Tsuen, 2000).  

Moreover, Electronic Commerce model will also be working parallel to the human resource management. E-Commerce model helps to create an interactive organizational design that aims to develop faster business methods for meeting with changing global trends. This change of technology and E-commerce will greatly help in the achievement of organizational goals of Marks  Spencer, which are to maintain a productive human resource, relationships with stakeholders and be innovative and learning organization (Turban,  HYPERLINK httpwww.amazon.comsrefntt_athr_dp_sr_2_encodingUTF8sortrelevanceranksearch-aliasbooksfield-authorDave20King King, Lee   HYPERLINK httpwww.amazon.comsrefntt_athr_dp_sr_4_encodingUTF8sortrelevanceranksearch-aliasbooksfield-authorDennis20Viehland  Viehland, 2004).

The Role of a Leader in this Change
Leadership plays a major role in shaping the organizational behavior of an organization and implementing the organizational changes effectively. Human resource is a key towards a businesss success and thus managing people through effective leadership is very necessary.  The role of an effective leader can help to minimize the failures for the organization in todays dynamic and global market. The leadership skills that will be appropriate in this case to bring a positive change are mainly the vision for motivation human resource, sharing of information through two-way communication, innovative ideas, interpersonal skills and optimistic attitude towards the achievement of goals.

These are the basic criteria for bringing a positive change in the organization. Marks  Spencer must focus upon building leadership qualities in the managers so that organizational changes can be achieved effectively. Furthermore, the leadership styles that can be adopted to implement the changes at Marks  Spencer, it requires charismatic leadership style which aims at envision, energize and enable to enhance the communication between people in the organization and redesign the organizational design effectively and efficiently (Luthans, 2003).

Envision
 It means to develop a clear picture of future for the employee that helps in the achievement of objectives in the long run. Marks  Spencer can face the current challenges by becoming vision oriented and the effective leaders can communicate this vision effectively to the employees for motivation and commitment (Luthans, 2003).

Enable
In this part, the leader assists and supports employees to achieve organizational goals. Basically, communication ting effectively helps in implementing the changes where employees morale is increased by continuous feedback and appreciation of work by the leader. All these result in implementing organizational changes effectively with minimum resistance to change.

Energize
This leadership style aims to create a positive attitude in employees, which affects their performance and behavior simultaneously. This way the leader can portray himself as the role model and show his enthusiasm and confidence in companys future and growth potential which will be transferred to the employees minds as well.

Therefore, effective leadership occurs when there is effective flow of two-way communication in the organization. Marks  Spencer must focus upon building effective communication system where shared and common goals of the company can be achieved through employees hard work, commitment and support (Luthans, 2003).

 Barriers in the Implementation Process and How to overcome them
There are barriers that hinder the organizations ability to implement the changes effectively and they need to be dealt efficiently, which is mainly the resistance to change and cultural barriers.

Resistance to Change
When large organizations like Marks  Spencer plan to redesign heir organizational structure, it leads to high resistance to change by its employees. They are not satisfied with the new organizational design and job dissatisfaction and insecurity increases. To implement the changes for meeting the changing global market trends and customer expectations, the organization must gain the confidence and approval of its human resource because otherwise the changes cannot be implemented successfully. Resistance to change can be overcome by the feedback system where the employees issues are dealt carefully and their morale is increased by showing them the positive side of the changes that will enhance their individual career growth ((Hsu  Tsuen, 2000).  
        
Cultural barriers
Globalization has increased the importance of culture in todays world as people from different cultures work together in an organization with common shared objective of achieving success. But, conflicts and complexities arising due to cultural differences creates difficult for the organization to bring new changes and create mutual understanding between employees for adopting new approach towards work. As Marks  Spencer is an international retailer, it has to keep in mind the cultural values of its workforce and develop an environment where interactions between employees is purely based on performance and achievement of innovative ideas for growth. This way the conflicts and negative influence of cultural differences will be minimized and the new organizational design will be implemented successfully to achieve goals (Sana  Shah, 2008).

Conclusion
Marks  Spencer is UKs one of the most popular retail stores that provides all products and services under roof.  Over the past years, the company has been going through serious problems mainly concerned with its stakeholders where employees, customers and suppliers were the main issue. To meet the expectations of its stakeholders, Marks  Spencer requires redesigning of the organizational structure, developing effective human resource management and maintaining a positive strong organizational culture. For the implementation of these changes, human resource management and E-commerce model have been selected which can help in creating an organization that is innovative and dynamic in its field to meet todays global market challenges effectively and efficiently. Although, there are major problems or barriers that hinder in the successful implementation of these changes and it is highly important to overcome them. These are mainly the resistance to change by employees and cultural barriers.