Once the challenge of convincing manufacturers to work directly with Marks & Spencer was overcome, the company now had the system and relationships in place to experiment with these new technologies and to teach their manufacturers how to use them in production. As Simon Marks later stated, “We came to regard ourselves as a kind of technical laboratory. We felt it was one of our functions to provide our suppliers with expert technical information about the new materials and processes which the advance in technology was making available.”8
