Corporate Strategy and Governance: Tesco Manager Replacement Analysis

This report presents a case study on Tesco, investigating the reasons behind the replacement of over 1700 managers and its subsequent impact on the organization. The research begins with an overview of corporate strategy and the company's background, emphasizing the role of human resource allocation in achieving competitive advantage. The report explores the rationale for the managerial changes, analyzing the issues behind the replacement of existing managers and the importance of human resource allocation for Tesco's competitive advantage. The methodology section details the primary and secondary research methods employed. The critical review of results synthesizes findings from both secondary and primary research, followed by recommendations and an action plan to improve Tesco's corporate strategies. The report concludes with a comprehensive analysis of the key findings and their implications for Tesco's future.

Corporate Strategy and
Governance

Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................1
1.1 Overview and background of the research.............................................................................1
1.2 Overview and background of the organisation......................................................................1
1.3 Rationale of the research........................................................................................................2
1.4 Research Aim, objectives and questions................................................................................2
1.5 Structure of report..................................................................................................................3
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.........................................................................................5
2.1 Concept of human resource allocation...................................................................................5
2.2 Issues behind replacement of existing managers with new one under Tesco........................6
2.3 The importance of human resource allocation in TESCO for achievement of competitive
advantage.....................................................................................................................................6
2.4 Relationship between human resource allocation and achievement of competitive
advantages....................................................................................................................................7
CHAPTER 3 : RESEARCH METHODOLOGY..........................................................................10
3.1 Primary Research.................................................................................................................10
3.2 Secondary Research.............................................................................................................12
CHAPTER 4 : CRITICAL REVIEW OF RESULTS ...................................................................14
4.1 Critical review on the basis of secondary research..............................................................14
4.2 Critical review on the basis of primary research.................................................................15
CHAPTER 5 : RECOMMENDATION AND ACTION PLAN....................................................24
Recommendation.......................................................................................................................24
Action Plan.................................................................................................................................25
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................27
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................28

Topic
“To ascertain the reason behind replacement of more than 1700 managers who
overseen services in stores and its impact on the organisation. A case study on Tesco.”
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Overview and background of the research
Corporate strategy is the plan which is developed by an organisation to shape objectives
for their business entity. Vision and Mission are also included in this plan. This strategy provides
overall scope and direction to corporation in order to ensure that organisation work together to
achieve organisational goals (Marquis and Lee, 2013). Main aim behind practising concept
related to corporate strategy is to protect the interest of organisational stakeholders such as
shareholders, suppliers, financiers, government, consumers and many more. In this research,
understanding about corporate strategy is developed in order to investigate about models and
techniques by which productivity and profitability can be achieved by an organisation. Corporate
strategy helps business entities to attain efficiency in organisational operations and enables them
to earn productivity and profitability. Main aim of both this concept is to provide benefit to both
internal and external shareholders. It also helps in accountability and corporate social
responsibility.
1.2 Overview and background of the organisation
To develop an understanding about corporate strategy, an organisation is selected named
as “Tesco PLC”. Tesco is a large scale public limited company which operates in retail market of
general utilities and home appliances. This company has headquartered in United Kingdom but
operates in various parts of the world. This company uses the concepts of corporate strategy in
order to shape objectives of their business operations and ensure that their organisation is
heading to correct direction. By investigating overview and background of this organisation it
has been ascertained that this company is going to remove managers of different-different
departments who oversee services in more than its 226 stores (Sethi, 2012). These managers
handle operations like recruitment and HR duties, compliances, customer experiences,
responsibilities for health and safety etc. These responsibilities are further shifted to 900 new
managers. The reason behind this is effective human resource allocation over multiple stores.
With the help of business strategy, TESCO has developed their vision, mission and
1

organisational objectives on the basis of which operations of this company are conducted.
Corporate strategy helps TESCO Plc to develop certain rules and regulations for their
organisational operations. This company operates in retail industry due to which it is important
for them to plan their objectives strategically and govern all their operations.
1.3 Rationale of the research
Corporate strategy is used to provide benefits and resolve issues which occur in business
due to certain problems. Rationale is the significance about the purpose of conduction of this
research. Main reason behind conducting investigation about corporate strategy is to ascertain
benefits of these concepts in an organisation. Reason for this investigation is to identify the
impact of business models used by organisations on their corporate strategies. By conducting this
study, researcher can ascertain various aspects which effect strategies and plans of the business.
This research is a primary investigation which is conducted using fresh resources due to which
relevancy of this investigation is high. This research paper can help future researcher to gain
understanding about these concepts and impact of business models on these concepts (Amran,
Lee and Devi, 2014). This investigation can help readers to understand how corporate strategy
can help management of an organisation to develop their objectives and why corporate strategy
development is important in a business entity. This research is based on TESCO Plc by which
investigator can enhance their knowledge about these concepts when used in organisation
context. Past researches about the same concept has few flaws about the relevancy of this
concepts to organisation. But this investigation has conducted using an organisation due to which
there are no flaws present in this research work.
1.4 Research Aim, objectives and questions
Research Aim:
“To ascertain the reason behind replacement of more than 1700 managers who
overseen services in stores and its impact on the organisation. A case study on Tesco.”
Research objectives:
 To analysis the basic idea of human resource allocation.
 To identify issues behind replacement of existing managers with new one under Tesco
 To investigate the importance of human resource allocation for TESCO to achieve
competitive advantage.
2

 To examine relationship between human resource allocation and achievement of
competitive advantages.
Research questions:
 What is the basic concept of resource allocation?
 What are the main issues behind replacement of existing managers with new one under
Tesco?
 What is the importance of resource allocation for TESCO to achieve competitive
advantage?
 What is the relationship between resource allocation and achievement of competitive
advantages?
1.5 Structure of report
Conceptual framework is the blueprint for all the activities which are conducted in a
research. In this research proposals, investigation using TESCO Plc is conducted which is
classified into five chapters which are mentioned below:
CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION – In this section of the research, an understanding
about the research topic is developed. Introduction refers to the overview and background of the
research which provides understanding about the topic (Muchlinski, 2012). Research aim is
created in this section which is based on the topic of research. Along with the aim, related
research objectives and questions are developed. These objectives are the basis of the purpose
which states that why an investigation is being conducted.
CHAPTER 2 : LITERATURE REVIEW – In this section, various sources are
analysed in order to build an understanding about the topic and research questions. Various
sources such as scholar books, articles and journals are used to answer all the research questions.
This section involves theoretical information about the critical evaluation of the research
problems. Main aim of this section is to investigate all research problems. In this section
business model used by TESCO Plc is applied.
CHAPTER 3 : RESEARCH METHODOLOGY – The process of research
methodology is used to collect data for the purpose of research decisions. This process includes
various techniques of data collection and research techniques. In this section, discussion about
secondary and primary research is undertaken along with the techniques in order to gather all
data from respondents.
3

CHAPTER 4 : CRITICAL REVIEW OF RESULTS – Under this segment of
research, results are ascertained which are raised by the questionnaire prepared in research
methodology. Objectives developed in the research report are reviewed in order to identify all
the results which can conclude the research objectives and results.
CHAPTER 5 : RECOMMENDATION AND ACTION PLAN – In this segment of
research, recommendations for the proposed research are developed. In this segment, various
advises for the company such as TESCO Plc has provided about what they can do to improve
their corporate strategies (Fernando, 2012). In this section, action plan for the research is
developed. Under this action plan all the activities which are required to be performed are
recorded.
4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Concept of human resource allocation
According to Khan, Muttakin and Siddiqui (2013), concept of resource allocation can be
described as distribution of resources in an organisation for carrying out major operations, in an
optimum manner. In this regard, major resources of a company include machineries, equipment,
infrastructure, human capital, finance and more. In context with TESCO, for this company,
employees are considered as main resources as they help in producing products or services as per
demand of customers. Therefore, in order to get best support and contribution of employees for
providing best services to people, it is necessary to allocate them on different job more
appropriately. If managers assign roles and responsibilities to workers according to their skills
and capabilities, then this will help in getting high performances of them. This would help in
gaining high competitive advantage as well for present organisation.
In order to achieve high competitive advantage, corporate strategy also plays a main role
in resource allocation. It refers to a strategic plan which defines corporate goals and objectives as
well as ways by which a company can achieve its objectives in given period of time. As per
views and different opinion of Ngo and O'cass (2013), it has been analyzed that globalization
assists corporations to concern more on competitive advantage. For this purpose, they have to
pay more attention on strategies to get high cooperation of workers for attaining set goals. In this
regard, corporate strategy has considered as a holistic view of entire business and take the
combined strategies (organizational, functional and departments) into account for sustainable
competitive advantage. For this assistance, management of TESCO requires to manage portfolio
of products or services, functional and business activities in appropriate manner. Therefore,
corporate strategy will aid in setting phases and allocating resources for business expansion. It
also entails the flow of constant information between middle, top management and all units
(Gelens and et. al., 2013). Henceforth, under well governed setup of corporate-strategy in
TESCO- requirement of transparency, disclosure and accountability help in leveraging the future
course of action, for getting support of human resource in winning competitive advantages.
2.2 Issues behind replacement of existing managers with new one under Tesco
As per article on Tesco to shed up to 1,700 jobs in new management shake-up (2019), it
has evaluated that Tesco is going to stripping out a layer of management under its various stores.
5

Moving near about 1,700 jobs is considered as latest effort as per UK's biggest market chain
which cut costs by £1.5 Billion. This company is going to remove its managers under HR
department, Customer experience department, Health and Safety division etc. These managers
oversee services of near about 226 largest stores of Tesco. Further, these responsibilities to
oversee such operations will provide to 900 new employees. The main duties of these new
managers is to effective handle matters like human resource allocation, across multiple stores. As
this would aid in getting their efforts for gaining high competitive advantage at marketplace. It
has evaluated the main reason behind replacement of these managers is inappropriate utilization
of human resource. Therefore, to retain workers and gain high commitment towards running
business successful, this company has recruited new managers. The another reason behind same
is to gain effectiveness in cost-saving in upcoming three years. For this purpose, it has also
recruited 900 new managers to effectively distribute roles and responsibilities to workers. This
would help in effectively utilize the human resource for getting high competitive advantage.
2.3 The importance of human resource allocation in TESCO for achievement of competitive
advantage
From conceptual views of Moser (2012), it has been analysed that resources of a
company are the important thing for executing a task of project in desired manner. It mainly
includes all assets, organisational processes and firm attributes, which enables management to
improve efficiencies and effectiveness. In context with TESCO Plc, it currently wants to replace
some existing managers with new one in order to get competitive advancement. For this purpose,
main role of management is to schedule out staff members for producing effective goods and
services. It also includes planning what vendors are required for conducting promotional
activities, identifying technology, preparing budget plan and more etc. Under all these processes,
managers will concern more on how to influence workers for accomplishment of this project
(BarNir, 2012). As without support of employees, company will not be in position to achieve its
target on time. Therefore, it is the main responsibility of managers of TESCO to develop
strategies and plan for allocating workers on different job position, in effective manner. For this
assistance, they are also required to concern more on evaluating skills and capabilities of each
worker properly. This would help in allocating human resource for conducting different tasks
and activities more appropriately.
6

2.4 Relationship between human resource allocation and achievement of competitive advantages
In today's fast-paced world, where economy competition has become an issue of services
or products. With this assistance, companies now give much attention for better services and
provide best products at marketplace. This could only be achieved by utilising human resources
and input their efforts into giving out best services. According to different views and opinion of
Jansen and et. al., (2013), it has been argued that human assets are most important key source of
competitive and sustainable advantage. Therefore, if management of companies like TESCO
trust their employees as well as give challenging roles, then in return workers will positively
respond. They will work with high motivation, commitment and give best performance for
accomplishment of business objectives. In this regard, there are some main factors evaluated for
success - corporate strategy and governance; commitment of upper level of management;
capabilities of staff members, team's aspiration and more. Thus, all these organisational aspects
that sources of competitive advantages for a company is now shifted from financial to
technological resources and then to human capital. Henceforth, it has been proved that success of
a company is not dependent only on product quality and technology used for conducting business
operations. It mainly depends on attitudes, competencies and skills of workers as well as abilities
to work under complex situations (Terry Kim and et. al., 2013). In TESCO, for gaining high trust
and commitment of workers, managers mostly rely on corporate strategy. This strategy is built
by Board of Directors which includes planning and directing of employees towards certain goals
and objectives. These type of corporate strategic plans are formulated on the basis of some
aspects. It includes the way to integrate human resource into strategic plans. This could only be
achieved if HR policies of TESCO are coherent and line managers recognise the importance of
human resource.
Under this process, management are needed to concern on different aspects of business,
for analysing how to create value for attainment of goals. Since position of any organisation
within its industry is used to determine whether profitability of business lie above or below the
average. Therefore, by adopting the concept of different business models like Porter's generic
strategies, a company can analyse how to develop effective corporate strategy for achievement of
competitive advantages. This would also help in getting long term sustainability in business for
staying competitive at marketplace.
7

Porter's value chain (ways of competing): This model refers to an analytical framework
which assists corporations in identifying business activities, which create value as well as
competitive advancement. It provides various ways for a company by which a company can
differentiate its products and services at marketplace. In context with retail organisations like
TESCO, Porter's value chain aid managers in developing effective corporate-strategies. This
would help in allocating resources like human capital in more appropriate manner. Along with
this, it also aid TESCO in increasing productivity of workers for receiving high competitive
advantages. As per perception of Fulmer and Ployhart (2014), this strategy model can also be
defined as set of techniques for building high reputation of business at marketplace. It gives
opportunities to company in getting more retention of workers and their efforts in achievement of
business goals. This leads to concern on three main generic strategies for increasing profitability
of TESCO as given below:-
 Inbound logistics: Under this logistics operations of TESCO is quite complex and
mainly involves numerous supply of different types of products and services. TESCO is
having 7817 stores all around the globe. Company is regularly engage in making
investments which helps them to increase their logistics capacity in order to scale of
economies can be increased in great extent.
 Operations: TESCO operates numerous business with approximately more than 80
million shopping trips. This company is having thousands of shops in more than 11
countries. TESCO mainly operates their retail sector different types of stores that
includes, metro stores, express stores, extra and superstore. It also has manufacturing
grocery retail chain in which they sell their own brand product in addition to this they
also operates their functions in banking sector.
 Outbound logistics: One of the main source of TESCO outbound logistics in flexibility
and cost effectiveness sin their services. Their supermarket chain offer various delivery
options such as home delivery from purchase made through TESCO direct. In addition to
this, company also offer these kind of services to their offline consumers who make their
purchase from TESCO stores in various selected geographical locations. Therefore, to
execute any strategy, this company needs to shape workforce as per requirement of
business objectives (Hill, 2017). Managers also require to give right job to right
employee so that strategies can be executed more appropriately.
8

 Marketing and Sales: TESCO is having a main message which is “ Every little Helps”.
Company is having an effective marketing strategy that is provide competitive process
and produce varieties of selected products with best quality. TESCO is taking advantage
of both online and offline channel of distribution. Company needs to implement
formative strategies to restore their trust of stakeholders.
Therefore, to attain goals related to gain high competitive advantage, it is essential for
management team to allocate different resources like human resource, raw materials and more in
appropriate manner. By giving roles and responsibilities as per skills and abilities of workers,
aid managers to get best performances for completing a task. In addition to this, it is also
essential for managers to adopt different leadership style for influencing workers towards
achievement of competitive advantage. It includes democratic style of leadership where every
employee allows to work in own manner for accomplishing assign roles (Teece, Peteraf and
Leih, 2016). This would help in getting high retention of workers also for increasing
performance of business.
9

CHAPTER 3 : RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This part of research is considered as most important aspect, as it helps in gathering
relevant information on specific topic in best manner. It provides various methodologies like
primary and secondary techniques to collect data for further investigation. Here, under primary
research, project makers use various techniques to collect reliable data. Further, they organise the
information, make analysis and then interpret same to draw valid conclusion in desired way.
While, in secondary research, investigators can obtain information from external sources like
books, journals, government data, newspapers, articles and more. Under these type of sources,
several authors and professionals have given their views and opinion on same topic. This would
help researchers in evaluating their thoughts and making analysis according to own perception.
In context with present research, management team of TESCO has used both methods for
understanding the importance of human resource allocation, in order to get high competitive
advantage. Therefore, for this purpose, concept of secondary and primary methods are explained
below in more descriptive manner:-
3.1 Primary Research
It can be defined as a methodology which is used for collecting original information,
instead of depending on such data which has already collected by other researchers. In technical
terms, here researchers are required to conduct investigation in own manner for addressing a
certain problem. This requires an depth analysis also to solely carried out activities for getting
feedback and views of respondents. Therefore, the main advantage of primary research is to
reach effective solution of mentioned issues of research. As related to present research,
researchers are going to analyse role of human resource allocation in achieving competitive
advantage. For this purpose, they have analysed various techniques of primary research in order
to get specific information. It includes questionnaire, online and offline survey, interviews and
more. Concept of these methods for collecting data are described as- Interviews (telephonic or face-to-face): This method of primary research is considered as
qualitative research for collecting a data. Here, to get feedback of selected respondents
from a large sample, interviews are conducted either by face-to-face or over telephone
and other platform of social media. Therefore, for this purpose, researchers are required
to adopt effective communication for making interaction with interviewee. This would
10