Impact of Covid-19 on Tesco's Sales in the Retailing Industry

Professsional development
and practice

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................2
BACKGROUND.......................................................................................................................................4
Aim....................................................................................................................................................4
Objective...........................................................................................................................................4
Research Questions...........................................................................................................................5
Significance.......................................................................................................................................5
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.......................................................................................................5
RESEARCH FINDINGS...................................................................................................................7
Primary research data........................................................................................................................7
Critical evaluation of identified issues.............................................................................................15
RECOMMENDATIONS..........................................................................................................................18
CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................................19
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................................21

INTRODUCTION
Covid-19 pandemic has become worldwide issue from past few months because it has
affected all business sectors i.e. travel and tourism, hospitality, pharmaceutical and retail
industry negatively. Generally, retail industry is highly impacted from Covid-19 as compared
others. the reason behind is that this sector is properly dependent on two chain management
i.e. logistic and supply chain management.Logistic chain helps retail companies to provide
products on time while supply chain management build platform between retail company and
customers. Due to Covid-19 retail companies unable to provide their products to the customer
on time. there are other MNC’s that uses digital media to provide home delivery services to
the customer but lockdown has reductant on this strategy negatively (Kharoubiand Dolle,
2020). Thus, retail sector is majorly impacted from this lockdown instead of other sectors.
There are various SME businesses that have shut down their retail stores due to lack of
product selling but MNC’s are struggling with this situation.Still vaccine is not available for
the treatment of this corona disease so all governments of different countries like UK have
formulated social distancing law and quarantine terms. Such laws and lockdown have
brought huge financial loss in the retail. This Covid-19 pandemic is not only affected people
physically but also mentally for example most of the employees who employ in MNC’s or
small-scale companies avoids to go on work to keep thing like they can be infected as
resulted that leads poor productivity of staff in the workplace. Thus, it will be valid to say
that global pandemic Covid-19 has brought heavily financial loss in retail sector that directly
affect GDP rate of multiple countries. In this research assignment will give brief information
over challenges and issues that are havingand will have faced by Tesco in the retail industry
due to pandemic Covid-19.
This research will assist all retail companies in order to deal with current situations
which are facing by them. It will encompass all actual fact related to retail sector that arises
due to this pandemic (Authority, 2018). This research project will indicate that how retail
companies have faced heavy financial loss and will evaluate all challenges that can impact
post covid-19 as well. There is a main reason to choose this topic for the research is that there
are most of retail companies like Tesco still struggling to sustain in market while trying to
comply with all regulation which have formulated by UK’s government. In this research will
pick all authentic resources associated with research topic so that optimum result can be
received. It will highlight probable solutions of identified challenges which will supports

retail sector to deal with this pandemic effectively. Overall, this research assignment will act
as solution for the retail sector in current time and future perspective as well.
Tesco is a British multinational company that is headquartered in England, UK. it has
wide product line and services and offers them to the customer through it’s subsidiaries
which is located into multiple countries across the world. It has faced heavy financial loss due
to Covid-19 in past few months.
BACKGROUND
There have been a lot of changes in the growth factor of the retailing industry due to
the outbreak of pandemic and the company already had made so many changes because of
the Brexit to make the sales increase. Retailing industry contributes to the GDP of the country
and due to social distancing and lockdowns the customers coming in the organization are
limited. There are a lot of investments which the retailing organizations have put in the
company to be able to operate effectively after Brexit and due to. The small businesses in the
market are shutting down because there are no customers and the sales have reduced to such
extent that the company cannot function further. The lockdowns and social distancing is a lot
of problems which the company is facing but slowly when the market picks up again there
are a lot of strict actions which will have to be taken. There has to be a research which Tesco
will have to do of the market so that the further decisions can be taken by the organization
effectively and be able to increase the sales again in the market.
Aim
“The aim is to analyse and evaluate the negative force on the sales in the retailing
industry of the country after the Covid-19. The case study is on Tesco organization.”
Objective
 Covid-19 has created a lot of impact on the sales which is going to be evaluated for
the retailing industry.
 Identify the impact of this situation on the sales of Tesco organization in specific.

 There are a lot of challenges which the organization has faced for the sales to
decrease.
 Recommendations on the bases of the challenges which the company has had to face.
Research Questions
 Affect of Covid-19 on the retailing industry of United Kingdom?
 Impact on the sales of Tesco because of Covid-19?
 Due to declining sales what are the challenges which Tesco has had to face?
Significance
There is a lot of influence of Covid-19 in the retailing sector which is going to be
discussed in the further report and this is going to continue like this. There are a lot of
businesses which have had to close down forever due to this factor as they were not being
able to maintain the employees and the sales was not there. The research is about the
challenges and recommendations for the retailing businesses in the market so that there is
going to be a better functioning in the further (Van der Sluis, Burden and Huet, 2017). People
will have to live with pandemic situation for long which does not stop businesses to stop
functioning therefore there are important decisions which will have to be taken. The research
is recommended not just by scholars but other report and researchers as well so that there is a
better understanding of the current situation for Tesco and better decisions can be taken for
the future as well by the organization.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Type: Research is the process that involves searching new ideas, information and
thoughts which helps to influence the already known facts over the topic of research.
Research are of two types qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative type of research comprises
with information and facts in qualitative form (Rodrigues and Rosa, 2019). Theoretical form
of information is a part of qualitative type of research. Quantitative type of research involves
information related to mathematical facts and figures. Quantitative type of research comprises
with only relevant facts and figures related to the research topic. This report is based on the
qualitative type of research. This will allow researcher to achieve the overall objectives
behind the research.

Research Philosophy: Research philosophy is defined as the concepts and theories behind
the research. Research philosophies are of two types i.e. positivism and interpretive.
Positivism philosophy aims to gather and collect actual data and information which is already
available over internet and other information sources (Clark and et.al., 2017). While
interpretive philosophy is all about interpretations. In this philosophy all information are
analysed on the basis of interpretations of researcher. Positivism philosophy is used in this
research.
Research Design: Research design is a design of the research. There are total three types of
research designs i.e. inductive, deductive and adductive. Inductive research design starts with
a set of empirical observation, seeking patterns in those observations and then theorizing such
patterns. Deductive research design starts with the theory than it switches on developing
hypotheses from the theories available over the topic ad than collecting and analysing all the
information. Abductive research mostly based on the observation. This research is based on
the abductive research design.
Research Approach: Research approach is off three types exploratory, descriptive and
explanatory. Descriptive research approach is about to understand attitude of individuals
while explanatory approach is proposed to determine factors which impacts on business
environment directly and indirectly (Huang, Fang and Chen, 2017). Explanatory approach is
designed to achieve logical answering over given questions. Explanatory research approach is
used for doing this research. Questionnaire method is used in completing this research.
Research Sampling: There are two methods of data collection such as probably and non-
probably method. Probability sampling technique involves random sampling as it does not
approach all sources to gather information for the research. Non probability sampling
approaches all possible sources to gather information for the research (Cuervo‐Cazurra and
et.al., 2017). This research has used probability sampling method to gain the complete
advantages over the research. To conduct the primary research 30 employees at Tesco
Company took participated in the research.
Data Collection: Data collection is all about collecting necessary information for completing
the research. Data are collected with two method primary method of data collection and the
other one is secondary method of data collection. Primary method of data collection is all
about collecting information by putting up the individual efforts of the individual in gathering
all such information required for completing the research (Ratnam, 2019). Secondary method