1.

H&M
The company established in 1947 by its founder Erliing Persson in Vsters, Sweden. It called at first Hennes (hers in English) store as it was a women's clothes store. In 1968 Persson expanded to Stockholm where he purchased hunting and gun store (which included inventory of mens clothing and equipment) and called "Mauritz" which it assumed means his. In order to express the expansion Persson renamed the store Hennes & Mauritz and later to just abbreviations H&M. Nowadays, the company apart from clothes, offers cosmetics, footwear, sportswear, accessories. In 2009 begun selling home accessories that have been distributed exclusively by the company's internet catalog and thus is available in countries where it is sold online (Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and in the United Kingdom) (Reuters, 2012). The business concept is "Fashion and quality at the best price"(H&M, 2012). H&M has no factories on its own but it has 16 production offices that work very close with the whole supply chain network that consists of about 700 suppliers in Europe and Asia. Around 94,000 employees are working for H&M. It has about 2,500 stores in more than 43 markets in Europe, North America, Asia, North Africa and the Middle East (H&M, 2011). H&M is one of top clothing retailers in Europe. The current competitors of the company are Zara, Gap and Forever 21(Ensell, D, 2011). According to the Datamonitor report (2011) for H & M, the revenues during the financial year ended November 2010 was about $17,572.1 million which is an increase of 7% over 2009. The net profits in 2010 were almost $ 2,585.5 million which is an increase of 14% over 2009(Datamonitor, 2011). The access on information about H&M is quite easy and it is worth to apply some marketing tools as it stands strong in a challenging sector and will expand further geographically in five new markets and will open about 275 new stores around the world.

2. SWOT analysis of H&M

Strengths One of the strengths of H&M is that it has a good brand image and it has a great deal of outlets almost everywhere in the world. Youth and people who follows the fashion are attracted by H&M, as it is a fast fashion retailer (Datamonitor, 2011). This means high innovation combined with low prices. H&M offers really low prices which give the company a competitive advantage thanks to the cost saving management way of the company as stated by Alatalo (2011) (cited in Huiru 2011, p.37). Furthermore, H&M owns its stores and there is no franchising(European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 2004).Moreover, recognised designers such as Stella McCartney, Roberto Cavalli and celebrities such as Madonna helped the company to position itself as an upscale retailer (Datamonitor, 2011). Take for instance, the last collaboration of H&M with Versace to produce exclusive lines for H&M and in some locations sold out in 30 minutes (Wischhover, 2011) or the David Beckams underwear line that released February 2, 2012 in H&M stores (The guardian, 2012 ) . Also, it can be seen that the sales are continuous growing and it is ranked 2nd of top retailers(Euromonitor Iternational, 2009). Another advantage of the company is that knows really well the customers and it has segmented them (see appendix c) in six categories (women, men, teenagers, kids, babies, children and youngsters).Women and men at age 18 to 45 are the largest segments (Zapasnikaite, 2006). Last but not least, nowadays sustainability issues emerge every day, H&M is trying to be environmentally friendly and it used more organic cotton in 2009 than any other company worldwide (King, 2011).This gives H&M an opportunity, as customers are more sensitive about sustainability now more than ever before, and in many cases companies that did not bear in mind this issue had a negative effects on profit. Weaknesses The quality of products is often poor. This attribute can lead customers to choose products from competitors. Moreover, the distribution system of the company is not robust (as they want to save money everywhere it is possible) and the delivery of a product to the outlet is not frequently (Huiru, 2011). Christopher (2011) states that when customers face lack of availability, they will shop elsewhere. Furthermore, H&M has high dependency on external providers, by outsourcing the manufacturing process and merchandising supply to 3PL(Datamonitor, 2011). The company may not assure continuity in supply and prices. In the past, due to quality