Tesco

1. opeIntroduction

In 1997, Terry Leahy (Leahy) took over as CEO of Tesco. He aimed to make Tesco a ' Value Retailer.' Leahy named the strategy he wanted to adopt as ' The Tesco Way' which comprised of the company's core purpose, values, principles, goals and the Balanced Scorecard. Tesco adapted the Balanced Scorecard approach to meet its own requirements renaming it the Steering Wheel which had four quardrants - operations, people, customers and finance. The case highlights the approach of implementing the 'Steering Wheel' strategy in Tesco and the benefits reaped by the company after implementation.

On April 13, 2005, the UK-based Tesco Plc., a leading retailer in the UK, announced its annual financial results for the fiscal 2004- 05. For the fiscal ending February 2005, Tesco reported sales of Ј33.97 billion and profits of Ј2 billion. It was the first time that a retailing company in the UK had achieved profits of Ј2 billion. For the fiscal 2003-04, Tesco had recorded revenues of Ј30.81 billion and profits of Ј1.6 billion, a year - over - year growth of 20.5% in profits.

2. Globalisation

Tesco's huge growth in this country is a hard act to follow. With the domestic market increasingly saturated, some UK supermarket chains, namely Tesco, Sainsbury (who have now sold their interests in the USA) and M&S have looked to overseas markets to maintain their positions. This is a whole new ball game, bringing into play competition with large firms from other countries, such as US retailing giant Wal-Mart and French multinational Carrefour.

Tesco began expanding internationally in the 1990s and has outlets in the Republic of Ireland, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan. It has also recently bought chains in Turkey and Japan and is in the process of negotiating