Mother care PLC is the ultimate company of the mother care group. It basically comprises two iconic retail brands with international appeal. These brands are Mother Care and early Learning center. The main trading company in the group is Mother Care UK limited which is a specialist retailer of products for expectant and new mothers and babies to pre-school children. This retail business is usually carried out through the wholly-owned stores within the United Kingdom. It has previously been incurring many losses and is greatly emerging from this period. The current Mother care group structure reflects the historic corporate structure of the Storehouse group.
Competition on these stores has been significantly increasing over the years. Major supermarkets such as Tesco and clothes stores have been targeting this business linking the desire to the huge profits that are got from the business. Other rivals in this business include gap and Hennes, who have been over a long period viewed as very fashionable in this specialization area.
Political environment of Mothercare PLC
Entrepreneurship has significant chances to thriving if at all there be presence of a stable and favourable political environment. To Mothercare PLC, political environment analysis is paramount in its operations. Since Mother Care PLC serves the international market, this becomes an avenue through which it faces off with the political environment. UK, the place of location of Mother Care PLC, has followed a free market philosophy, whereby most of the practices fall in the hands of the private sectors as opposed to the control.
Legal and regulatory environment
The laws imposed by a country immensely contribute to the success or failure of a business. Unfair competition, such as which is occurring in United Kingdom’s in the clothes store in the line of production that Mother care PLC, operates greatly contribute to its failure or success. To many companies, domestic political considerations are likely to be of principal concern. The government continuously dictates what has to be produced and therefore, it becomes the obligation of the business to act towards producing what is legal through the government’s stipulations. Mother care has however been producing and marketing its products within a fair and a favorable legal and regulatory environment.
Socio cultural environment
Of the entire elements building up the marketing macro-environment, socio-cultural factors are the most complex to evaluate, and create the maximum challenge to the marketing firm. Social and cultural change is established in changing tastes, purchasing performance and changing precedence. Since this company immensely serves the young children and the females, Mother care has to actively work towards maintenance of the markets it is serving and still sustain the population that is in constant demand of its products. The market for baby transport and nursery furniture has over time maintained a healthy progress in the face of diminishing number of babies. Manufacturers in effect have taken advantage of the demographic trends to involve parents in the continued purchase of baby products. The Mother care plc has continuously taken over the market by putting into effect the consumer needs and the demographic count of the customers thereby stocking more of what the customers require. Despite the booming competition in this market, the company has over time been able to rise up above the competition to sustain and take advantage of the population it is serving and the cultural practices of the society. On the side of socio cultural environment capitalizing on demand and tastes of the customers served by Mother Care plc, it has critically taken this environment into hand by taking care of fashion change s in the market. This calls for the organization’s awareness on the demographic factors of the market such as population age, and demand for particular products putting into consideration the emergence of market differentiation and segmentation.
Technological environment
The technological levels, tendency and the rates of change in technology present in a particular society have a direct impact on the enterprise creation. The advancements in technology have been all good news and a good move in the total products sold by the company. This has boosted their sales to a great height because the retailers become easily assessed online, and hence order of products by the customers occurs conveniently. The technological advancements that are occurring at high rates boost the company’s total sales as potential customers are able to view the products online and order those of their interests, a move that is significantly increasing the total sales.
Despite all the positive results linked to technological advancement, technological breakthroughs in the market of the babies and ladies’ clothes have occurred with creation of new industries which have been a threat to the already established Mother Care PLC. This has hence rendered some of the earlier products become unneeded.
Factors in the external environment that might affect influence decisions made by managers in the company.
Strategic management is one of the factors that influences the decision made by the managers in a company. Mother care plc’s change of strategic focus has immensely led to a drop in its overall profits relatively to the profits that were earned in the previous years. There has been much fall in the net sales over the previous years. This drop is attributed to the shift of people to purchase clothes and children requirement in the supermarkets which are currently attributed to produce fashionable and classy clothes. This has in effect led to fall in the net sales of the company and hence the losses that have been occurring over the period.
The policies that the government of a country formulates within its territories on the products that need to be produced substantially affects the decision of the management. If the government shifts in opposition to sale of certain children or expectant women clothes and products, it becomes the responsibility of the managers to change their decision against or for production of the authorized products. The decision should be altered to a level that it is in line with the authority of the country.
Competition can adversely influence the decision made by the managers, and therefore can adversely affects the previous plan in which the company was supposed to act towards. When competition sets in, the managers have to come into consent on how the services and the marketing of their products are to be carried out so as to continue thriving in the market with no loss making (Wally, 2003). The Mother care PLC, for instance is greatly faced by competition from other large stores such as the supermarkets that are doing much to take over the market. At this point, managers should come out more aggressively to get tactics for continued performance.
The rate at which the key factors are changing
The rate at which the external factors are changing is very high. Competition become a common phenomena in many businesses today, and therefore, the need for managers’ decision making has increased so as to lay the effective measures that are to be taken to ensure that the business is a going concern. The government on the other hand has been significantly controlling what ids to be produced within its territories and therefore the managers have to hold and alter their previous decisions on their production and marketing to the levels that are in accordance to what the government demands. The managers have dedicate much time to decisions on strategic matters for a continued performance and a profiting one guided by the strategies that have to be laid down as the employees targets and for better performance of the business at large.