Table 1
Current Key Figures for Tesco
Category
Statistic
Staff worldwide
472,000
Staff in the UK
287,669
Stores worldwide
5,008
Total stores in the UK
2,545
Extra
13
Homeplus
Superstore
Metro
Express
OneStop
Number of markets
14
Which markets
China, Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Japan, Malaysia, Poland, Republic of Ireland, Slovakia, South Korea, Thailand, Turkey, UK, USA
Note: Facts correct October 2010
Source: Tesco Quick Facts 2010
Figure 1. Respective Number of Tesco Retail Formats in the U.K.
Source: Based on tabular data in Tesco Quick Facts 2010
A brief summary of the company's guiding corporate strategy is provided in Table 2 below.
Table 2
Summary of Tesco's Guiding Corporate Strategy
Strategic Area
Description
Core UK
The UK is our biggest market and the core of our business. We aim to provide all our customers with excellent value and choice.
Community
Making Corporate Responsibility integral to our business is essential in applying our values as a responsible business. We believe it is also an opportunity for growth.
Non-food
Our aim is to be as strong in non-food as in food. This means offering the same great quality, range, price and service for our customers as we do in our food business.
Retailing Services
Tesco has followed its customers into the growing world of retailing services, aiming to bring simplicity and value to complex markets. All our customers are different, and their needs are continually changing. That's why we continue to offer more than one way to shop:
Tesco Personal Finance (TPF): Tesco Personal Finance recently celebrated its eleventh anniversary and over the last decade it has grown to be the UK's most successful supermarket bank. Customers have a choice of 28 products ranging from savings accounts and credit cards to car and travel insurance.
Tesco.com: Since launching in 2000, Tesco.com has gone from strength to strength, with over 1 million active customers now choosing to buy online. Shopping for groceries online has been a revolution for people leading busy lives and those without access to transport.
Tesco Telecoms: Tesco Telecoms offers simple, straightforward telecoms services with great value tariffs. Customers can benefit from our mobile network, home phone service, internet access and an internet phone service. Tesco Telecoms also offers a wide range of telecoms products in store and online.
International
Tesco is an international retailer and wherever we operate we focus on giving local customers what they want.
Source: Our strategy 2010, p. 3
At Tesco, this core strategy is supported by specific corporate goals for growth. In this regard, Child reports that Tesco has succeeded where a number of competitors have failed: "Many retailers have tried and failed to establish themselves outside their home markets. Likewise, some retailers have gone astray trying to exploit Internet shopping. As a result, Tesco, the United Kingdom's biggest grocer, has attracted considerable attention because of its ambitious overseas strategy and its successful online home delivery service" (2002, p. 135). As an overall brand, Tesco has expanded its image among an increasingly diverse consumer base in recent years in ways that traditional retail grocers have been unable to match. For instance, Child also notes that, "Relying on sales of nonfood items and on international sales -- particularly in emerging markets -- for an important part of the company's future expansion, Tesco has delivered one of the fastest organic growth rates of any major retailer in the world. Its nonfood business rose by 18% in 2000-01, and its international business, which began with a launch in Hungary in 1994, now accounts for more than 40% of the group's floor space" (2002, p. 136). Besides non-food offerings, Tesco has been in the vanguard of retail grocers with online offerings including home delivery. In this regard, Child adds that, "Tesco also happens to be the undisputed world leader in Internet grocery sales (www.tesco.com). Its online home delivery service is now profitable, Tesco says, and it has struck a deal in the United States with Safeway, which will use Tesco's system for a home-shopping service" (2002, p. 136).
On the one hand, this impressive corporate performance is attributed to Tesco's leadership team's emphasis on efficiency: "Underpinning Tesco's success is excellent management and an obsession with operational efficiency and productivity gains, which the company uses to keep prices low or to improve service rather than to increase its operating margins. Despite this impressive record, Tesco is still relatively small compared with the likes of Carrefour and Wal-Mart, but it...
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