‘Tesco’ LEADERSHIP STYLE, VISION AND MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Introduction    3
1. Tesco’s History, Expansion and Reason for Selecting this Company    3
2. Vision, Leadership Style and Management Practices required for Growth    4
3. Tesco’s Application of the Above-mentioned Concepts    5
4. Proposed Recommendations for Improvements    6
Conclusion    7
References    8
Introduction
Convenience factor now drives retail choices and the pace, with which UKs supermarket giant grew since 1990. ‘Tesco’ is a British grocery and merchant retailer that was started in 1919 by ‘Jack Cohen’. However the company started as a group of few market stalls, company’s name appeared in the market in 1924 when Cohen purchased a tea shipment from the ‘T. E. Stockwell’ and combined the first two letter of this company with the first two letters of his own surname. In 1931, first Tesco shop was opened in Burnt Oak, Barnet. By 1931, Tesco had more than 100 outlets throughout Nation. Tesco has diversified its areas with the inclusion of retail clothing, books, electronics, furniture and much more, which made it a super market giant. By 2017, company’s turnover was around £72 Billion and during all these years company has faced numerous downfalls also, but what strategies and management made it a supermarket giant has been discussed.
1. Tesco’s History, Expansion and Reason for Selecting this Company
Tesco was not a big name in the retail market until 1931. After 1931, it expended its roots throughout nation. Tesco’s quick expansion is linked to the strategy they adopted by buying their opponents or rival’s shops. Because of this strategy, TECO was able to expand its business to around 100 shops throughout UK. During 1960s, Tesco observed a very quick and vast expansion in terms of its market and the products. Due to widening of the product supermarket chain expanded rapidly, using the expansion Tesco observed during 1960s they revolutionized the way people managed their grocery needs in UK. By 1970s, they started building a network of national stores in order to cover whole nation. Company’s turnover was around £1 billion as estimated in 1979, this number doubled to £2 billion by 1982, and this was in a 4 year time duration.
Year of 1990 was a turning point in the history of Tesco where company decided to expand globally with the setup of operation in 11 major countries including USA. This was the same year when company overtook Sainsbury and it stood above as UK’s leading grocery retailer. Tesco opened its first 24 hour store and also expanded to smaller countries like Poland, Slovakia and Czech Republic also in 1992 (Clark, 2019). World’s fastest growing retail market that is china was occupied as the target in 2004 by Tesco by acquiring £140 million stake in Hymall. Year 2009 again came out as a turning point in the expansion of Tesco when it collaborated with Royal Bank of Scotland and launched Tesco bank. Due to recession in UK’s market Tesco reported its first drop in profit from last 20 years in 2013, which continued until 2014. However, in 2018, the performance again improved and Tesco again occupied 27.7% market shares and was still by far UK’s biggest supermarket (BBC News, 2019).
2. Vision, Leadership Style and Management Practices required for Growth
Retail market is a sensitive market that depends completely on the needs of customers that is depending upon what the customer needs, the vision and management has to change. Growth strategy is a holistic model that is sensitive to the strategy, vision and leadership applied to the firm. Hence, rea
anging of these views results in a single outcome and as supported by Haque et al. (2016), retail market’s growth and functioning is sensitive towards customer needs. To achieve growth in both domestic and international economy, a visionary plan incorporated with leadership and management is needed because by applying this strategy only, customer’s dynamic demands can be fulfilled.
Firm’s growth depends upon the vision that the leaders have, so leadership style and vision, thus, comes out to be inseparable. This can be supported by Cho et al. (2016), where they compared three different leadership styles that were Authorities, Supportive and democratic. They found that supportive and democratic leadership styles proved to be more successful when company’s growth...