Tesco昔日在英國各鄉市都有賣場，如今下定決心大徹退。
Tesco: why did it all go so wrong?
A blinkered pursuit of profit has wounded Britain’s biggest supermarket group
• Tesco starts investigation into overstated profits
• Tesco starts investigation into overstated profits
“There are two types of chancellor,” Gordon Brown used to joke. “Those who fail and those who get out in time.” Tesco’s former chief executive, Terry Leahy, now enjoying a lucrative career as a feted business guru, got out in time. The irony is that many of the problems now bringing the retail giant low are a legacy of the strategic decisions he made.
The latest blow to the company is the extraordinary overestimate of expected half-yearly profits – amounting to a quarter of what was expected for the period – that has seen Tesco lose about a tenth of its value, massive in City terms. It’s an unwelcome greeting for the new chief executive, Dave Lewis, who has only just taken over from Leahy’s successor, Philip Clarke. The latter left after failing to resolve the problems he inherited.
What went wrong at Britain’s biggest and most bullish retailer? The answer is no single thing, except perhaps what happens when the mystique of a seemingly impregnable empire evaporates. For years, anyone who had dealings with Tescowould come away with respect for the apparent clinical efficiency of its business model. It did the same things – in terms of treatment of suppliers, playing the planning system and in the impact it had on local economies – as the other supermarkets, but it played the game harder.
Successive reports from the Competition Commission found the company acting against the public interest in a sector that was too concentrated and had too much power to be good for a healthy retail ecosystem. But Tesco and the other supermarkets got away with it again and again, partly because of a supine regulator and partly due to sheer chutzpah. Tesco’s bristling self-confidence carried governments, regulators, investors and, for a time, the public along with it. When Tesco was taking about £1 in every £8 that British people spent shopping, Leahy once quipped that this left another £7 for the supermarket to go for. The bravado worked. Early in his term of office, Tony Blair opined that the supermarkets had their suppliers in an “armlock”, but Leahy was still given a knighthood.
Then overconfidence led to overreach. Seeing limits to its UK expansion, Tesco began spreading overseas. But as its initially confident adventure in the US foundered, so its ambitions began to recede in China and Japan too. Tesco had been the company that could do no wrong; now investors began to question whether it knew what it was doing.
The supermarket increasingly found itself in a no man’s land between the deep cost-cutters such as Aldi and Lidl and the quality brands such as Waitrose, leaving it with a weaker, less distinctive offer, while also fighting off its near rivals Sainsbury, Asda and Morrisons.
But it was worse than that. Tesco invested heavily in large edge-of-town and out-of-town stores, which were hit by the rise of internet shopping. The supermarket tried to respond by making a trip to Tesco Extra a family outing. Yoga classes, child-friendly restaurants and independent-style coffee chains were brought in to make the old uncle look groovy. But now, instead of making the weather, in business terms it was chasing patches of sun that kept receding.
The public was falling out of love with the weekly mega-shop and there was a growing awareness of the impact of big supermarkets on local economies. Unlike smaller independent and locally owned stores, supermarkets suck more spending out of an area and have a negative overall effect on jobs in the retail sector. “Clone towns” dominated by chain stores created a backlash. This is reflected both in the explosion of interest in community food-growing initiatives, craft bakers and brewers, and in the rise of so-called “transition towns” that aim to build sustainable communities.
Tesco, though wounded, remains by far the UK’s biggest retailer. But if, as a result of its travails, it is reduced in size, the market opens up to some degree and we learn the lessons of its imperial overreach, that would be good for Britain. A resilient economy needs diversity. Too much power in the hands of too few retailers is bad for everyone – farmers, producers, consumers and the businesses themselves.
When big goes bad, it hurts far more people. That’s something we learned from the banking crisis. Mistakes get magnified and the blinkered, macho pursuit of growth and profits above all else distorts the business and the economy, and can end up cannibalising the very ecosystem on which it depends. Instead of looking to return the Tesco swagger, Lewis should reflect on how empires often make their worst mistakes as they scrabble to avoid collapse. The worst could be yet to come.
中國除官方高層。都不知道什麼滅頂計畫。
Baptism of fire for Dave Lewis at Tesco
If Dave Lewis was not considering radical action when he began in his role as chief executive officer (CEO) of Tesco in September, then he certainly will be now. The company's sales fell by 4.4% in the first six months of the year, down to £34bn (US$54.4bn).
The retailer also saw declines around the world, not just in the UK market. Asian and European sales fell by 8.4% and 9.3% respectively, although both were affected by currency headwinds. This fed through to a 92% fall in statutory pre-tax profit, to just £112m >>http://bit.ly/10uT02Y
Tesco store in Cambridge 'on verge of receiving 'asbo' from City Council'
Councillors are deliberating over whether to impose a community protection notice on the supermarket after it failed to clear litter when repeatedly asked
NATASHA CULZAC
Sunday 26 October 2014
A Tesco store in Cambridge is close to being slapped with a community protection notice (CPN) – formerly an Asbo – after it reportedly riled the council for not clearing litter in a fence.
The superstore on Newmarket Road was accused by a councillor of continually ignoring requests to clear up the rubbish that had accrued on its grounds.
According to Cambridge News, in a council meeting this week Peter Roberts, Cambridge City Council’s Executive Councillor for Waste, Environment & Public Health, told attendees: “We are potentially pursuing a community protection notice against Tesco.
“Tesco in Abbey has had a new fence and it’s basically just rammed with rubbish. We’ve asked several times they clean their ground as part of the agreement they have with us as the city authority and they continually, despite their claims otherwise, carry on just leaving it.”
Tesco has been contacted by The Independent for comment.
Community protection notices are a re-branding of the previous anti-social behaviour orders (abos), giving local authorities, police and social landlords the power to issue orders to curb behaviour that negatively affects the community.
Government officials say the changes have “streamlined” the application process, and while a civil issue, if the orders are breached they can result in a two-year prison sentence for adult individual or a £20,000 fine or businesses. These measures also affect the owners of nuisance or vicious dogs.
Cllr George Owers added in the meeting: “Tesco, to me, are the only organisation or business in Cambridge who persistently allow this to happen on their grounds and never clean it up.
“I hope the expanded enforcement team will look at using their increased resources to talk more to businesses, all kinds of businesses where we have similar problems, and if they persistently ignore us, use this power more widely than just Tesco.”
A Tesco spokesman told the newspaper: “We are working closely with the city council to tidy up the site.
“Contractors will be visiting the site shortly to undertake the necessary works and we will continue to monitor the situation on an ongoing basis.”
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