Retailers Marks & Spencer (M& S) and Sainsbury’s have increased their IT investments to improve efficiency and catch up with rivals.

Supermarket chain Sainsbury’s is to spend more than £300m on IT and plans to double online sales in the next three years, while high-street giant M&S has increased supply chain and technology spending from £39m in 2006 to £114m this year.

M&S is in the process of upgrading its in-store ordering system to a single integrated order platform across all sales channels.

Butler Group analyst Mark Blowers says the retailers are looking at how rivals are using technology to improve their competitiveness.

‘Most large retailers, such as Tesco, have already invested in or are working towards an integrated ordering system for greater visibility,’ he said.

‘M&S is focused on efficiency, and investing in technology to upgrade back-end systems is a way of achieving that,’ he said.

Sainsbury’s chief executive Justin King said last week that since last year the firm increased online customers by 49 per cent to 64,000 orders a week. But this is in contrast to Tesco.com, which last year increased online sales by 29 per cent to more than 220,000 orders a week.

Freeform Dynamics analyst Martin Atherton says Sainsbury’s still has work to do. ‘It is behind on its goal of saving £120m in stock loss, which could benefit from IT investment.’