Social responsible allows business to create a positive relationship with the community and also then environment within their operation.
Companies that use socially responsible are Marks and Spencer. They have done this by creating an operation call Plan A where they are able to generate £185 million from just reducing costs. Saving this amount of money they are given the opportunity to expand the M&S brand, this is one of their main objectives where they want to have a M&S store within a 30 minutes radius of each customer. With M&S saving £185 million they have been able to a positive relationship with the community that they are in. What they have also done is that they have been cleaning out the community’s lakes and rivers this is very good as they will be looking to show that they are caring about the environment, being social responsible is a very good marketing strategy as they will be gaining publicity, and this will lead to more people becoming more aware that M&S are looking after the environment and people will be willing to support the idea. They will be doing this through shopping at M&S.
The disadvantages of social responsible for companies such as M&S are that they will have lost an opportunity cost as they have been able to save £185 million they will have to choose whether they want to continue supporting the local community or increase their market share. As M&S want to increase their market share they will not be able miss opportunities like this, but they have to have a good relationship with the local community. M&S are now supporting fair trade and organic food, this very risky as this is asking customer whether they want to pay more for food or go to one of M&S’s competitors and start shopping with them as both fair trade and organic will cost more than any other