TESCO STRATEGIC PLANNING

Tesco Strategic Planning

Executive summary

One of the leading food retail companies is TESCO. It is one of the biggest supermarket chains in the United Kingdom employing 195,000 staff in UK and 260,000 worldwide. They have 979 outlets worldwide, in South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Czech Republic and Slovak Republic, 729 of which are in UK. TESCO is estimated to be enjoying 16.7 percent of market shares.

However, TESCO is still aware that they must be able to maintain their competitiveness if they are to continue experiencing success. This means that the company acknowledges the presence of competition and they are also aware that competition needs to be taken seriously. What makes competition such as integral part of the business cycle? How does competition affect the overall performance of a business? These are some of the questions that this paper will attempt to discuss.

Table of content

INTRODUCTION4

MISSION6

VISION AND VALUES6

CORPORATE STRATEGY7

Diversification9

Retailing services10

International10

First Class Service11

First Class Management12

DEVELOPING FIRST CLASS CLIENTELE SERVICE SKILLS14

Supporting the Changes16

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS17

Uses for Management Development18

Recruitment and Selection19

Graduates19

Managers19

CONCLUSION20

REFERENCES22

BIBLIOGRAPHY32

Tesco Strategic Planning

Introduction

Tesco is one of Europe's leading food retailers, having enjoyed a period of tremendous growth during the 1980s. Now well established within the UK with over 440 stores, we have acquired Catteau in France and more lately bought a stake in international, founded in Hungary (DeLone, 2002, 44). In 1993, total sales hit £9 billion with profits at £435 million before tax. Tesco has nearly ten million customers per week assisted by a workforce of 110,000 in the Retail, Head Office and circulation divisions (Cunningham, 2001, 33).

In the early 1990s it was clear that the human asset schemes which had effectively seen Tesco through its growth time span in the 1980s needed refocusing on the new and distinct challenges which the company faced. Issues such as:

Meeting increasing clientele anticipations on service, in a high-cost-conscious sector.

Balancing the claims of applying expertise to reduce labor costs with those of staff liking jobs with content.

Securing and retaining value employees, in a low-paid part, while opposite up to demographic changes.

Challenging living, thriving administration systems, styles and hierarchies in favor of decreased control and disciplines.

But our customary approach to teaching and development had only gone so far in evolving these almost-too-obvious points and were limiting our possibilities of advancement because:

Performance was mostly focused on input (i.e. the number of teaching days) rather than the distinction the teaching had made to enterprise goals (Mata, 1995, 141).

There was an emphasis on knowledge-based teaching rather than practical abilities acquisition.

Development was usually defined by what training courses were available rather than tailored to the individual's needs.

Development plans were not sufficiently focused on genuine enterprise problems and issues.

The genuine dilemma was one of getting started. Clearly, if we could release our shop employees to deliver clientele service, unshackled by managers, we could use less managers to manage (rather than control!) more effectively. Jobs within stores would feel and appear more as retail careers allowing individuals to contribute more to Tesco's success. But how to make the first step?

We were clear that teaching ...