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Selling more lobsters as well as better underpants is one of the secrets behind Stuart Rose's fabulous success at M&S - with pre-tax profit for the year to March up 28 per cent to £965.2m on sales up 10 per cent at £8.6bn. What were his other tactics?
 STORES
M&S is homing in on the well-off big city centres with refits in Edinburgh and Liverpool. By Christmas, three-quarters of all branches will have been tarted up. Over the past year, 63 Simply Food stores have been opened and another 100 are planned for this year.
FOOD
Profit margins on M&S food - the mainstay of busy working couples and rushed singles - are among the highest in the industry, although M&S doesn't disclose quite how high. New formats such as Hot Food to Go are being launched, while the first restaurant has opened in Newcastle and the company is moving into outside catering.
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| Stuart Rose’s reign at Marks & Spencer’s has seen pre-tax profits approach the £1bn mark |
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CLOTHES
Already the country's largest clothing retailer, M&S increased its market share to 11 per cent. In particular, menswear increased its market share from 9.6 to 10.3 per cent (Bryan Ferry earned his keep, it seems) and childrenswear went up from 4.2 to 4.5 per cent - the first such increase for six years.
ECO-FRIENDLY
Rose's Fair Trade products looks like a master-stroke. Fair Trade products sold £22m last year - compared with £4m the previous year. Organic food makes up £100m of the total, up 47 per cent on the previous year.
ONLINE
M&S's online business grew to £160m and the company is now working with Amazon to improve its website.
OVERSEAS
Once a hornet's nest, M&S is finally learning to export its success abroad. The 240 overseas shops saw sales increase by 16 per cent with new shops opening in Slovakia, Latvia, Bulgaria and Switzerland and an even bigger store in Dubai.
FIRST POSTED MAY 22, 2007
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