Corporate & Global Strategy Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Corporate & Global Strategy - Case Study Example The study made three important findings. Firstly, Tesco unlike the competitors is focused on cost leadership, generic focus and product differentiation. This has become part of the company's culture. To the company lower cost does not mean lower quality. Secondly, the company's management emphasizes on its core values, lay emphasis on product differentiation and lower cost; that is using the cash cows and stars to reduce the company's question marks. Also, it has been argued in this paper that, the company should enter into exclusive long term relationship with suppliers, co-branding with celebrity, artist and designers to create a unique product. It should be so, because taking a lead of innovation might mean innovation in branding, innovation in product variation and innovation in other formats. Andrews (1997: p. 52) defines corporate strategy as "the pattern of decisions in a company that determines and reveals its objectives, purposes, or goals, produces the principal policies and plans for achieving those goals, and defines the range of business the company is to pursue, the kind of economic and human organisation it is or intends to be and the nature of the economic and non-economic contribution it intends to make to its shareholders, employees, customers, and communities". Corporate strategy in effect maps out the businesses in which an organisation intends to compete in a way that focuses resources to convert distinctive capabilities into competitive advantage. (Andrews, 1997). In the present challenging context of today's global competition, businesses and firms no-longer compete as individual companies but try to corporate with other businesses in their activities (Wu & Chien 2007:2). Kanter (1995:71) on his work on "Mastering Change" argues that success in the present day business is not for those companies that re-engineer the way they do things, or for those fixing the past. According to Kanter (1995) such an action will not constitute an adequate response. 1.1TESCO Corporate Strategy This paper focuses on the corporate strategy of TESCO. Founded by Jack Cohen in 1919, Tesco Plc today, has established itself as the largest super store in Europe. According to the company 2007 corporate report and the website, Tesco PLC is an international retailer. Tesco principal activities include food retailing having over 2,000 stores in the United Kingdom. The company also has stores and retail outlet in other countries like the Republic of Ireland, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Turkey, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan and China (Tesco 2006 Review). Tesco operates 165 International Express stores. In addition it operates 39 stores in China, 111 in Japan, 13 in Malaysia, 62 in South Korea, 6 in Taiwan, 219 in Thailand, 35 in Czech Republic, 87 in Hungary, 105 in Poland, 91 in Republic of Ireland, 37 in Slovakia and 8 in Turkey. (Tesco Annual Review, 2006). It therefore operates