H&M marketing strategy analysis

The paper will analyze strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that the company face in its current market. It will also evaluate the company’s competitive advantage by analyzing the strategies that the company used to reach where it is currently. The paper also analyzes H & M major competitors to determine why they are better or worse than H & M. the last part of the paper discusses recommendations or suggestions that the executive management of the company should emulate to ensure the company remains competitive in the future. The main recommendation is that the company should utilize the online platform to the fullest because it has great potential that the company is not using currently. The paper will conclude by giving recommendations on how the company should change its marketing objectives to realize more profits.

SWOT Analysis of H & M Company Strengths H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB is one of the greatest companies operating in multiple nations it has a strong financial muscle capable of funding all its activities. A strong financial muscle is a strength to this company since it offers the company financial flexibility making them adopt any changes easily and it also increases both new and old investors’ confidence. H & M company had a revenue growth of 19. 4% over the 2014 financial year, this shows its capability of increasing revenue in future financial years. With less control it is hard to control the quality of the products and when customers have a bad experience with the products it creates a bad brand image. The company operates in multiple nations but not all nations have online shopping access, this is a weakness since the company is not utilizing online channels fully.

Inversini and Masiero (2014) argued that online sale platform is the future of marketing and when this company is not utilizing it fully it is a form of weakness because they miss many the online customers. H & M has been linked with designers and celebrities but most of their products come from independent suppliers who copy trends from luxury brands. Following trends is a weakness since the customers will view the products as imitations. The company has many branches across the globe and it still has a focus on constant expansion. In 2016 the company opened 400 new stores, it continues to open more, and this is an opportunity as the company will increase its consumer base hence improving profitability. Because the company offers affordable products it has a potential of expanding into new markets like in developing countries in Africa and Asia.

These markets have new demands and an increasing purchasing power hence the company should capitalize on them (Kinda 2010). Threats All markets have threats most of them are in form of risks. Competitive Position H & M company being one of the greatest apparel companies is very competitive and has a strong competitive edge. It also has major competitors like Zara and Nike, but Nike is commonly not classified as its competitor because H & M does almost the same business as Zara. When it started it was the pioneer of the fashion market, this is when its competitive advantage started. H & M company outsources most of its manufacturing work and has a culture of hiring cheap labor to reduce costs. Being cost effective makes the company offer affordable prices which creates its competitive advantage.

Being the leading brand focused on sustainability it can win the largest market share by offering trendy fashions in time and convenient low-priced products. They use this tactic to ensure they have a good reputation and to secure their future. Its supply chain has been faced with challenges in the past but now they aim at ensuring all its aspects are sustainable. The company is climate-smart whereby it is energy efficient and aims at reducing its overall carbon emissions by using renewable energy. The current market demands green products and when this company becomes climate-smart it wins many customers. This company has a website, but it can expand to even sell using social media (Manyika and Roxburgh 2011). The company sells its products to average income people, but it can expand the market to offer their goods to the rich people.

The high-income people are not considered by this company, yet they are potential customers. The company should create a brand and new stores for these customers to make them feel rich. The next marketing objective this company should emulate is improving the quality of their products by having close supervision of the manufacturing process by owning the manufacturing process. This will increase their profitability greatly because the products will be overpriced for the rich people with higher purchasing power (Nagle and Müller 2017). The company should change their promotional strategies since they do not offer enough information to the current targeted customers even the new targeted market. It is easier now to access customers using social media and other internet platforms.

These platforms can easily give instant feedback from customers hence making the company informed all the time (Bronnimann et al. the company should use online platforms to advertise itself alongside traditional platforms. There are many apparel companies but to be fair we must compare H & M to a company that sells the same product line as them. The following graph shows the relation between H & M company and its close competitors in terms of revenue generated in the year 2009. The following graph shows the sales growth pattern of H & M company in the United States from 1996 to 2013. The following graph shows a comparison of H & M company’s sales and one of its most successful competitors ZARA’s sales from the year 2008 to 2016.