Case Study: Burberry’s Challenges in the UK Market
Burberry was founded in 1856 and has been making its famous raincoats in Yorkshire since 1972. Unfortunately, Burberry, announced a £66m loss in the last financial year 2024-2025. The luxury fashion retailer posted that sales reached £2.4billion (March 2025), compared to £2.9billion the previous year (2024). To revive itself, the company replaced the chief executive officer, Jonathan Akeroyd, with Joshua Schulman, the former head of US brand Michael Kors (data from July 2024) and announced proposals to cut about 1,700 jobs worldwide over the next two years (data from May 2025). With their Fall collection 2025, they plan to reignite brand desire, and remind their customers the authenticity and traditional brand value of Burberry. Although sales are still declining, the rate of decline has slowed considerably and by more than the market expected (September 2025). In its fresh update, Burberry said it has made some progress in its transformation efforts but is still in the “early stages” of the potential turnaround.
TASK:
Your team has done a fantastic job analysing Burberry’s internal and external environment and now the Senior Management wants every individual in the team to develop the strategic direction for Burberry for the next 3-5 years. Your goal should be to come with a strategic direction that helps Burberry turn around their declining performance.
The individual report should start exactly where the group presentation ended, that is the SWOT analysis. In the group presentation, students have conducted extensive research on Burberry’s internal and external environment and have summarised their findings in the SWOT table. For the individual report you are asked to take this one step further and develop the long term strategic direction for Burberry. At any given time you can use relevant data/information from the analysis conducted in the group presentation. For instance you may want to make an argument about competition and what other competitor are doing.. feel free to bring this discussion in. Do not forget to use references.
The individual report should consist of the following sections;
(1) SWOT analysis
The SWOT analysis from your group presentation – exactly as it was submitted in the group presentation. You don’t have to explain the SWOT analysis in a separate paragraph the table should suffice. This is the starting point to start generating your tactics and future strategies.
(2) TOWS matrix
In the TOWS matrix you are going to combine the data from the SWOT analysis and come up with tactics/ideas. This is the brainstorming stage – all ideas are good ideas at this stage. Come up with at least 4-5 tactics per category.
The way you are going to combine the data is as follows:
Strengths & Opportunities: To pursue one or more of the opportunities you identified what strengths do you need to utilise? You combine this information and you come with one or more tactics/ideas
Strengths & Threats: To overcome one or more of the threats you identified what strengths do you need to utilise? You combine this information and you come with one or more tactics/ideas
Opportunities & Weaknesses: By pursuing one or more of the opportunities you identified what weaknesses you fix? You combine this information and you come with one or more tactics/ideas
Threats & Weaknesses: Come up with ideas/tactics that at the same time help you fix some of your weaknesses and overcome some of your threats.
You need to briefly explain each tactic/idea (1-2 sentences).
(3) ANSOFF matrix
In the ANSOFF matrix you need to position your tactics/ideas from the TOWS matrix inside the right strategy i.e Market penetration, market development, product development, diversification.
Then from the 4 strategies and corresponding tactics you need to select 2 strategies and 1 corresponding tactic per strategy to analyse further. Which 2 you are going to select is up to you. These 2 strategies will be your strategic recommendations to Tesco. Indicative these paragraphs can discuss the following but are not limited to:
• Does this strategy and corresponding tactic address any opportunities and/or overcomes threats? How? By following this strategy and corresponding tactic do you capitalise on your strengths? Yes? No? How?
• Implementation plan: how are you going to implement this strategy and corresponding tactic?
▫ Market penetration - explain how you will retain and increase your market share. Ideas: how you will deal with the competitors, additional services you may offer to attract new customers, maybe an advertisement you want to run.
▫ Product development – explain the process of developing new product/service and how this will add value to the company. Ideas: invest in R&D, or acquire a company that has the knowledge/technology you are after, how and why customers will value the new product
▫ Market development – explain which country you plan to enter and provide discussion on how you will enter it.
▫ Diversification – combine the discussion from product development and market development. If you are entering a new industry with a new product, provide some additional information about the new industry such as is it attractive, is it competitive, has room for investment etc.
• Have you implemented this strategy before (as a company)? Yes/no? was it successful? Is there a reason why Burberry hasn’t implemented it before?
• Is this strategy a good fit for Burberry? Is this strategy aligned with Burberry’s mission, vision, corporate values, CSR practices?
The main discussion should be in paragraphs but feel free to use tables/ graphs/ images to support your arguments.
And that’s the end of your report.. No need to add a conclusion
Marking Criteria Individual Assignment
Word count: 3.000 words
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Assignment Subsections
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Allocated mark
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SWOT (5 marks)
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- From the group presentation, “copy-paste” the SWOT analysis. The SWOT table needs to be identical with the group presentation.
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Identification of tactics using the TOWS matrix (25 marks)
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- Identify and discuss tactics for your company
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Identification and discussion of future strategic direction (60 marks)
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- Position your tactics inside the appropriate strategy in ANSOFF (appropriate use of ANSOFF) – 10 marks
- Critical discussion of 2 strategies and corresponding tactic(s) – 50 marks (25 marks per strategy discussion)
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Overall (10 marks)
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- Presentation & Structure of the assignment – 2 mark
- Correct referencing - 3 mark
- Appropriate and credible sources – 5 marks
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