TESCO

Managing Business Operations: Tesco

Introduction2

Top Competitors2

External factors affecting Tesco3

Political and legal3

Economic and social3

Technological and environmental3

Transformation Processes and Evaluation of the Operations3

Speed6

Quality6

Flexibility6

Cost7

Dependability7

Process Design7

References9

Managing Business Operations: Tesco

Introduction

Tesco is known as the biggest retailer of food in United Kingdom, with 2,318 stores all over the world. In the UK, only Tesco has 1,878 stores operational, and also in the rest of Asia and Europe. Tesco.com is a completely-owned subsidiary offering an online service, including tesco.net and tescodirect.com. The company also offers a variety personal finance services, both online and offline. Tesco's headquarters are in Hertfordshire, UK (Data Monitor, 2004, Company Profile- Tesco, Reference Code: 1674). Tesco approximately sells 40,000 food products in its stores, along with non-food line of products and clothing. The company's own-labelled products contribute approximately 50% to sales. These brands are of three levels, healthy, finest, and value. With this many stores have gas stations as part of convenience shopping. As a result, Tesco is one of the largest petrol retailers in Britain. Other service offered in the United Kingdom by Tesco includes Tesco.com and Tesco Personal Finance.

Top Competitors Some of the top competitors of Tesco Plc are;

Carrefour S.A., ExxonMobil Corporation

The Big Food Group Plc

J Sainsbury plc

Marks and Spencer Group plc

ASDA Group Limited, BP Plc

Safeway plc (Data Monitor, 2004, Company Profile- Tesco, Reference Code: 1674).

External factors affecting Tesco

Political and legal

Tesco operates in 14 countries over the world. Having such vast operations has an adverse impact on the organization. The organization has to deal with different laws and legislations spread across the countries of its operations. Similarly, the political situation also fluctuates from country to country. Change in the political structure may lead to change in policies which might be or not in favour of Tesco. Both the factors may ultimately lead to a business challenge for the organization.

Economic and social

Changes in demand or factors like inflation rates and local unemployment rates will affect the organization. Social factors which may have an influence on the operations of the organization include demographic shifts and a change in consumer behaviours.

Technological and environmental

The operation in supermarkets has been greatly affected by the utilization of online grocery retailing, which is leading to stable growth. Subscriptions for online grocery retailing have grown by more than 50%, and it is estimated that it will rise by 70% in future (Office for National Statistics, 2010). This means that Tesco has to mould it operations according to technological trends (Tesco, 2009; Data monitor, 2010).

Transformation Processes and Evaluation of the Operations

Operation management is all about how an organization produces services and goods. The function of operation management is to determine the best possible way to deploy the resources, which are devoted for the production, and delivery of the product, and/or services. The transformational model describes the nature of operations. (Slack, 2004, p 3).

Main Operations of Tesco

With respect to Tesco, the transformational design can be described as; the inputs transformed by sources are the goods to be sold to ...