Competing with Covid-19: Survival Strategies for Grocery section of Tesco PLC in England and Ireland Markets

Business Dissertation
(Competing with Covid-19: Survival
Strategies for Grocery section of Tesco
PLC in England and Ireland Markets)

Contents
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.........................................................................................3
What is the impact of Covid 19 on the business performance and productivity of Tesco plc in
England and Ireland?...................................................................................................................3
What are the survival strategy adopted by Tesco plc to survive in the market of England and
Ireland after the global pandemic?..............................................................................................4
Whether or not home delivery systems are successful in the post-pandemic era?......................6
CHAPTER 3: METHOD OF ANALYSIS......................................................................................8
CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS...............................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................17

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
What is the impact of Covid 19 on the business performance and productivity of Tesco plc in
England and Ireland?
As per the view of Lee (2022), COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the performance and
productivity of most of the companies in a negative manner and this results in decreasing their
overall profitability. With the affect of lockdown in the business, most of the business need to
close their shops for that period of time and this results in reducing the working efficiency and
effectiveness of employees to work in the business. People fear to work in the business as they
face difficulty in dealing with the uncertainty of the market in a negative manner and this results
in decreasing the morale and motivation among employees to work in an organisation. The
Tesco plc need to close their physical outlet as they customers have a fear in the minds of people
and this resulted in delivering low opportunities for the business in the market of England and
Ireland. As there is high competition in the market, various new business are opening and are
offering new and unique products at different and reasonable prices. To beat that competition,
Tesco uses cost leadership strategy so that it could maintain its old customer base and could gain
more new customers (Gamage, 2020). It is important for the Tesco plc to tackle the situation in a
creative manner such as by building a sense of trust in the mind of customers so that they achieve
growth in the time of pandemic in an effective manner. This could be beneficial for the business
as it allows their customers in having comparatively lower prices than their competitors so they
could increase their customer base through these strategy. Customers, today are always looking
for unique products at reasonable prices. This strategy enables the business in having more
customers as per their competitors which will result in the increment of company's image in
England and Ireland market. The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the business productivity is
defined as under:
 Decreased growth and success – With the advent of COVID-19 pandemic across the
world results in closure of most of the businesses and this decreases their overall growth
in the competitive market (Tortorella, Giglio and Limon-Romero, 2018). It is important
for the Tesco plc to sale their products through online portals as customers are less
interested in buying things from the physical stores. This helps in increasing their
variability and reliability in the market of England and Ireland for better productivity and

growth in the market and for encouraging customers for buying the following products
and services.
 Less number of customers – With the effect of COVID-19 pandemic has results in
decreasing the number of customers within the organisation for the sale of particular
products and services (Power, Heavin and O’Connor, 2021). Less customers means less
profits for Tesco plc and this impacts the services of the business in a negative manner in
the long run. It is important for Tesco plc to attract customers by selling their products
through online portals and sites so that they feel safe in ordering things through online
delivery of particular goods and services.
 Negative working culture – As COVID-19 has resulted in decreasing the morale and
motivation of employees working within the organisation mainly results in creating a
negative working culture of employees (Sefiani and et. al., 2018). This impacts the
working performance and efficiency of employees to achieve high sales and revenue in
the competitive business market within England and Ireland. It is necessary for the
business to use creative ways for attracting employees of the company to get high
motivation to work in the company for achieving the predetermined goals and objectives
of the business. This also helps in increasing the customers base and share in the market
in the time of pandemic in the world.
What are the survival strategy adopted by Tesco plc to survive in the market of England and
Ireland after the global pandemic?
As per the view of Chernov and Sornette (2020), the impact of Covid 19 was so worst for
the company that surviving in the market become difficult for them. To survive in the market
Tesco adopted various survival strategy so that they can regain their market share after the global
crisis. Each and every company is looking for the approach which helps them to survive in the
market for longer time period. So most of the brands are developing to frame or implement best
survival strategy for them. The foremost strategy that Tesco used is hybrid strategy. In this
method they combine two strategies with one another that are cost leadership strategy and cost
differentiation strategy. As per the view of cost leadership strategy company reduce the cost of
production for their product as compared to the competitors. On the other side in context of cost
differentiation they produce variety of unique product and sale in the market so that they can
gain competitive advantage and can survive in the market (Taskov, 2020). The major reason for

combining both the strategy is that customers, today are always looking for unique products at
reasonable prices. This strategy enables the business in having more customers as per their
competitors which will result in building strong brand image. Some of the most attractive
survival strategy that they use in the England and Ireland market are as:
Online delivering: This is one of the effective survival strategy that is used by the company. In
this Tesco start selling their product using network and technology (Kondratiuk, 2021). This is
also adopted by the company as it builds more trust among the customer towards the brand at the
time of Covid 19 crisis. Using this strategy company is also able to increase their market share as
the online sale of the company in England and Ireland rises . It has also identified that this is the
most vital survival strategy that Tesco adopted when running business becomes difficult for most
of the retail firm.
Complementary service: Another crucial approach that Tesco use at the time of Covid 19 is
providing complementary service to their buyers. In this company offers different product or
service to their customer in free of cost. They are giving complementary service for the purchase
made by the buyers through online app (Murphy and Murphy, 2018). This helps them to regain
their market share as most of the consumer are attracted toward the brand. Using the strategy of
complementary service also assist them to gain competitive edge from the rivalry and get more
market share.
Hygiene and safety strategy: The period of Covid 19 as so worst for the company that most of
the people are concerned about their health and safety. So to reduce the risk among the customer
and to survive in the market at the time of pandemic, Tesco adopted the strategy of Safety and
Hygiene approach. In this minimum contact is being made the employee with the customer.
Product are also being delivered using robots or technology so that fear of being caught by the
virus reduced (Lamba, 2022). This helps them to gain more customer as buyers are developing
trust among the brand and is ready to purchase food from Tesco.
Some of the other strategy that is designed by the Tesco plc to survive in the market of
England and Ireland at the time of Covid 19 Pandemic is one stop shopping place. Where buyers
can buy product using drive through. Another one is developing employee to the best so that they
can satisfy the customer in large manner.
The company is also adopting the retailing kind of business model in which goods are
purchased from manufacturer and are sold to the customers at such prices which are enough to

earn profit. This will allow Tesco to be customer supportive and will help the company in having
a strong customer base.
Whether or not home delivery systems are successful in the post-pandemic era?
According to the view of Kathy Gramling, 2021, there is a negative impact which is seen on the
strategy adopted by the Tesco at the time of Covid 19. The home delivery system was so
unsuccessful that after the post pandemic era. This is because as TESCO is one of the British
multinational groceries and general merchandiser which is one of the third largest retailer. It
provides the customers with different types of the products and services through store as well as
through online platforms. During the time of the Covid -19 pandemic all most all business got
affected and home delivery facility to the customers were also not allowed for the certain time
period. As per the Kathy Gramling there were many reasons which led the business to shut down
the home delivery facility for certain period of time. In context to TESCO being a supermarket
company they provide customer with the perishable as well as non-perishable item. The one
which are perishable got destroyed which affected the profitability of the business as home
delivery was stopped for few period of time. So, For TESCO home delivery was unsuccessful as
it affect the overall performance of the company as well as profitability too (Sparks, 2018).
Through home delivery company used to add around 25% of its profit. As per the Ashish
Nainwal, 2020 all the business operation were affected some how during the COVID 19
pandemic times. As infection was spraeding so rapidly that the company was bound to follow the
government rules and regulation so it had to stop the home delivery services. Through this
services customers used to feel very convenient and easy to purchase the products. During the
pandemic time the most important aspects for the respective company was to give more focus on
employees health as well. Due to the rule of social distancing also the company need to stop the
service of home delivery for the customers. So, during the COVID 19 pandemic home delivery
for Tesco was unsuccessful as they faced lot of loss.
As per Denise Lee Yohn, 2020 after the certain time period, everything was getting normalised
and government authorities also become lien-ant with the home delivery services. the company
started the home delivery when the situation got little normalised. Proper precaution were
adopted by the respective company to deliver the products to the customers in their home such as
proper mask, sanitization, social distancing etc. With the changing time the company started
increase the profit as it provided home delivery facility as per the government rules and