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I think before the credit crunch £1 in every £3 spent in the UK was spent on/in tesco (loans, insurance, supermarket etc...)

Which was crazy but look at them now suffering and dying out

Used to be my go to supermarket but haven't reached for a while

Sainsburys/Morrison's jumped them in the middle lane

Whilst more people who used to go to tesco cos it was cheap have aldi/lidl now

And obv the waitrose/m&s market is still there

Don't know who frequents asda tho just got lots of the same shit no variety come like Walmart

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This Tesco blip is a minor . As someone said they have every other street on lock down. Remember, they went through the Horse meat scandal and came back up .

The problem with Tesco is none of their products stand out  and poor management over all.

 

Yes they do have have more stores over the big four. But most that shop in the likes of Tesco express are people who cant be bothered to travel the distance or late-night-grab-a-quick munch shoppers.  Also their customer service is piss poor  and stores are usually all over the place.

 

Quality of food is average over all.

 

You will be surprised the likes of Lidl & Aldi sometimes better than  in a lot of food categories.

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From the FT

 
September 26, 2014 5:38 pm
 
Hubris has set Tesco on a course into perilous seas
 
By John Gapper
 
Highly successful companies often contain the seeds of their own destruction
hen Sir Terry Leahy stepped down as chief executive of Tesco three years ago, the world’s second-largest retailer seemed to be in
excellent health. It had squeezed rivals such as J Sainsbury and Asda, expanded into Asia, eastern Europe and the US, and still
had unbounded ambition. “We’re developing a business for the future, with sustainable growth for years to come,” boasted its 2010
annual report.
 
The corporate giant, however, was about to be toppled. This week, Tesco was in turmoil after Dave Lewis, the new chief executive
recruited to take over from Philip Clarke, Sir Terry’s flailing successor, disclosed that it had overstated its first-year profits forecast by
£250m. Four executives have been suspended and a new finance director is digging through the books.
 
Since Sir Terry left, Tesco’s results and reputation have been tarnished by one thing after another. It has shut down Fresh & Easy, its
ill-fated experiment in US retailing; its UK supermarkets are under attack not only from Sainsbury and Waitrose but also from the
German discount chains Aldi and Lidl; it emerged this week that prosecutors in South Korea are investigating its local Homeplus chain
for allegedly selling customers’ information.
 
That Tesco should so rapidly lose its lustre seemed unimaginable when Sir Terry left after 14 years at the helm, to paeans of praise
from investors and observers, who admired his down-to-earth style. “Hubris is a common fault and one I hope to avoid,” he wrote in
his book Management in 10 Words, containing lessons from Tesco’s success, such as: “Organisations are terrible at confronting the
truth.”
 
The truth is that Tesco’s fall was not unimaginable; it was not even unlikely. The story of a dominant company that trounces rivals for a
decade and pushes into new markets with ease, only to stall and suffer a crisis, is common. It has happened repeatedly to US
corporations from Microsoft to Eastman Kodak, and illustrious British companies from Marconi to Lloyds Bank.
In many cases, the companies seemed to be doing best just before they stalled – the spectacular performers are the ones to worry
about. “Most companies accelerate into a stall, experiencing unprecedented progress . . . just before growth rates tumble,” one study in
the Harvard Business Review found. It estimated that 87 per cent of large US and global companies had experienced a stall after a long
period of success.
 
“Most companies do not collapse suddenly. It is a slow-motion train wreck but investors believe the nonsense that managers spout
about their success long after the warning signs are there,” says Terry Smith, founder of Fundsmith, the asset management group.
Some of these fallen corporate stars manage to regroup and recover from their humiliations; others do not.
 
Very successful companies contain the seeds of their own destruction in a variety of ways. Executives grow complacent and ignore new
competitors, believing their own myth that they have an invincible formula; companies run out of room to grow in their core
businesses and domestic markets and venture into new and less familiar ones; markets or technologies get reinvented around them.
 
“Economic progress, in capitalist society, means turmoil,” wrote Joseph Schumpeter, the economist who coined the phrase “creative
destruction” for the competitive process. It often looks as if scale and infrastructure are bound to protect corporations but they are
prone to decay, destruction and being outsmarted. The turmoil is intensifying – the average company in the S&P 500 index in 1958
was 61 years old; by 2012, the figure had fallen to 18.
 
“No matter how much you’ve achieved, no matter how far you’ve gone, no matter how much power you’ve garnered, you are vulnerable
to decline . . . Anyone can fall and most eventually do,” concluded Jim Collins, the US management writer, in How the Mighty Fall.
With hindsight, Tesco fell into several risk categories. It invested heavily overseas, having gained a 32 per cent share of the UK grocery
market. It had a dominant (if not flamboyant) leader with a self-confident management cadre around him. It had kept on stretching its
balance sheet by adding debt to fuel its global expansion.
 
The basic challenge facing big companies is size itself. They grow rapidly because they have invented a product or cracked a market,
but the law of large numbers means that this cannot continue indefinitely. They must either settle for a lower growth rate or, in effect,
take more risk by venturing into activities in which they lack the same instincts and expertise.
 
Strategic hubris is not solely the fault of overconfident executives. They are often prodded into overexpanding by analysts and
investors who want them to keep on producing high returns. “It is a strange voodoo dance. Investors will not accept that a company
cannot achieve 12 to 15 per cent growth indefinitely, so the managers have to pretend it is possible,” says Mr Smith.
 
If Tesco is lucky and Mr Lewis is adroit, the turmoil will subside and it will stabilise. Even then, it will face a tougher slog than at the
height of Sir Terry’s reign. One comparison is General Electric of the US, which took a decade to regain investors’ enthusiasm after the
charismatic, relentless Jack Welch stepped down in 2001. Jeff Immelt, his successor, laboured for years to reset their expectations.
This suggests an 11th management word to add to Sir Terry’s lexicon for the ambitious executive. If you are offered the chance to lead a
successful company that has shown a consistent and uncanny capacity to beat competitors and outperform consistently across many
markets, run.

 

 

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