Tesco's Innovation and Entrepreneurship: A Detailed Case Study Report

This report delves into the crucial relationship between innovation and entrepreneurship within the UK retail sector, with a specific focus on Tesco. It begins by defining these key concepts and highlighting their significance for economic firms. The report then presents a case outline centered around Tesco's challenges in innovating, particularly in the context of personalized products like t-shirts, and the difficulties in measuring innovation success. A comprehensive literature review explores various perspectives on innovation, including its impact on employee empowerment, innovation strategies, and the importance of benchmarking. The report further examines the challenges faced by the retail industry in implementing innovation, as well as the importance of a strong innovation culture. The analysis extends to the impact of innovation on entrepreneurship within the UK, considering the historical context of industrial revolutions, globalization, and the rise of digital technologies. The report also explores how Tesco has adapted to these changes and the strategies it has employed to manage innovation, including the use of efficient management and employee training. The report concludes with a discussion of the risks associated with innovation and the importance of effective entrepreneurship for organizational growth and profitability. The report emphasizes the importance of innovation for firms to meet consumer demands and stay ahead of the competition.

INNOVATION AND
ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
1. Case outline........................................................................................................................1
2. Literature Review...............................................................................................................2
3. The innovations impact on entrepreneurship within the context of United Kingdom.......4
4. Tesco and the innovations impact on organisation's entrepreneurship..............................6
5. Conclusion and discussion.................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Innovation is the process to innovate new idea and product while entrepreneurship is the
process of designing and launching a new business with their new ideas. The report main aim is
to understand the importance of innovation, entrepreneurship and sustainability to the economic
firm. The chosen industry is retail industry and firm for this report is TESCO in retail industry
UK which offer different services and products to their customers such as clothes, food product
etc. Report describes the innovation challenge faced by the company and also describe the
factors that affect the firm's ability in order to respond those challenges. Further it recommended
some methods to address those challenges.
1. Case outline
As retail industry faces some challenges for innovation and there is a need to overcome
such issues. Recently the company wants to innovate personalised t-shirts but on the other side it
faces issue regarding measuring and benchmarking innovation. It has been realised that this is
the core method to improve the success of the firm. On other hand, traditional Key performance
instruments such as sales volume and revenue are considered the best method to measure the
success. For this report, I chose retail industry because it is one of the leading industry in UK and
it also tries to innovate new products and services in order to meet out the demand of their
customers. But because of not using modern method of measuring the performance is not
adopted by the firm and that is why it also faces some issue regarding innovation (Verreynne and
et.al.,2019). The chosen country is United Kingdom because it is one of the developed country
and have many big firms who always produces new things in order to satisfy the needs of their
customers.
For example, TESCO which is one of the leading firm in UK, also not provide a better
experience to their customers. That is why to attract wide range of customers towards them, now
TESCO innovate new products with better planning. In the same way, quoted firm is actually
offer new personalised t-shirts so that it will help to maximize the sales and profitability of the
company.
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2. Literature Review
As per the view of Mendis, Lemley and Rimmer (2019) innovation is the term of new
idea, creative thoughts or new imagination in the form of device and methods. Innovation is also
provided a better solution in order to meet out the new requirements of their customers. The
innovation is also takes place through the provision for more effective products and services that
made available to the markets and government. Generally many big firm innovate products or
services in the terms of technologies but TESCO innovate new personalised t-shirts with 3D
effect in order to attract large customers towards them. From last many years the company did
not meet out the expectation of the firms. That is why quoted organization provide innovative
products in order to satisfy them and maximizes the sales as well as profitability too. There are
many challenges which a firm is actually suffered in order to innovate the products such as to
select the best idea of innovation which help to attract customers and increases the market share
in the UK.
Irani (2019) critic that in the case of innovation, big firms always faces issue regarding
employees such that they are not empowered to innovate and many managers fear that it will
distract the employees and they are not ready to accept the challenges. Even employees are not
motivates to innovate for this reason, the leader or manager have to motivate them and provide
training sessions in order to overcome this and also provide incentives which helps to motivate
them. Sometimes a firm is also missing out the innovation strategy which also may cause the
challenges for the firm. As it has been analysed by Acar, Tarakci and van Knippenberg (2019)
that innovation is considered one of the best centralised functional group that helps to increase
the performance of the company in the market and also enhances the sales in better way.
Basically if the firm have the best innovation strategy then it will easily meet out the needs of
their customers which will further help the firm to retain their customers and sustain their brand
image in market.
As per the view of Lopez, Bastein and Tukker (2019) retail industry faces challenges of
measuring incorrect innovation strategy and to improve the success of a firm it is quite necessary
to use those traditional methods in order to improve the financial position of the company. It has
been identified that the retail industry faces this challenges the most because it indirectly lower
down the morale of the employees and as a result, sales and production level of the firm also gets
affected. As innovation is considered one of the best strategy that helps to attract wide range of
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customers towards them and it also assists to achieve the objectives of the firm. On the other
side, it has been analysed by the Kohli and Melville (2019) that build a strong innovation culture
support a firm to strengthen up the financial structure of the country and also ensure that
innovation is a strategic focus for every employees.
On the other side, if any company who is based upon the retail industry tries to
implement innovation strategy then it has to monitor the planning for the innovation strategy and
for that the benchmarking is the most important factor that helps an industry to reach its success.
Thus, this strategy helps to measure the success for the company in better way. Apart from this,
it has been analysed that innovation is the best strategy which is helpful for a firm to attract large
mass of group, which further help to improve the sales as well as profitability. Therefore,
innovation is the best strategy that helps a business to reach their aim and objectives with proper
strategy (Wikhamn, 2019). In the retail industry, innovation is the foremost requirements of the
company which directly raises the productivity of their employees and affect the entire working
system in positive way.
As per Burns, it has been observed that if innovation is not used by the organisation then
it might make it face challenges such as lack of profitability and growth. Innovation keeps the
organisation meet its consumer demands and constantly find new consumer markets. The
innovation strategies helps the organisation to beat its competition and find different ways to
tackle the products sold by its competitors(Burns, 2016). The leader or managers of TESCO find
it difficult to cooperate their teams with used innovation strategies as it makes them change their
teams focus from one thing to another again and again. The managers also see their teams
becoming less responsive towards new things as it takes time for them to understand about the
new innovated products as well.
The organisation's entrepreneurship has to ensure that the proper training and guidance is
given to their employees before considering innovating any new products and services(Barasa
and et.al., 2017). Also, they have to make sure that they have necessary skills to guide and teach
their employees with the respective changes TESCO is undertaking to innovate new products
and services.
If the organisational managers and leaders do not hold the necessary skills to guide and
train their employees correctly it can lead TESCO facing bad reputation and its consumers
shifting towards it competitors. TESCO's entrepreneurship is seen as one of the leading
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entrepreneurship's in UK because of the company's constant product innovation and high market
profitability.
TESCO's entrepreneurship to cope up with the above mentioned impact of innovation
tries to innovate its product's under the same categories in which only few things are changed.
Such as while innovating a new cell phone the company tries to change the new product's
software and tends to keep the hardware same. This makes its easy for its employees to
understand the changes made without observing any distraction in the overall product range. This
strategy keeps the organisations function smooth and efficient and its employees focused towards
their assigned tasks(Cao, Navare and Jin, 2018).
Along with it, the entrepreneurship of the organisation uses strategies such as to guide
and make aware its employee base about the innovation that has been brought by the
organisation. The tools and technique used by TESCO here is efficient management that is well
aware of the tools and techniques that the organisation needs while guiding its employees
regularly. Also, they make sure that each and every employee of the organisation understands the
needs and requirement of the innovation that has been brought into place by TESCO.
The above strategies make sure that TESCO successfully keeps innovating new products
and services without impacting its entrepreneurship in any ways(Clark and Wójcik, eds., 2018).
This also makes sure that the organisation is in safe hands and can innovate as per the needs and
demands of its consumers. The risks associated are handled well and the organisation's
entrepreneurship is leading towards its growth and profitability.
TESCO and its innovations impact on entrepreneurship is good because the organisation's
entrepreneurship is skilled and better in terms of understanding the impacts of innovation. This
makes the organisation successful and growth oriented.
3. The innovations impact on entrepreneurship within the context of United Kingdom
After the
industrial revolution United Kingdom became one of the leading countries in the world which
had a variety of industries producing different products at a time and supplying them across the
globe. The 19th century took United Kingdom towards new technological innovations which in
turn made its industrial productions fast and easy. This change brought a large demand of the
country's made products from the consumers worldwide.
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The United
Kingdom with these large demands saw growth in new industries. These industries were not only
producing the products for United Kingdom but for a worldwide consumer base(Decker and
et.al., 2016). As per these different consumers demands the country saw a growth in innovation
as well. Each of these consumer demands were different from each others and the industries were
producing products which are different and fulfils these consumer demands.
Globalisation
made the country's reach across the globe and its industries became popular and demanding.
Tesco with all these changes became one of the leading UK companies supplying its products all
over the world. New consumer demands made the organisation to constantly innovate new
products as per their needs and requirements. This impacted Tesco's and the overall UK's
entrepreneurship in many ways. It became necessary for the entrepreneurs to understand these
innovations core understandings. They need to understand the global demands and why these
demands required innovation. Every entrepreneur required a brief understanding of the cultures
from where these consumers demands were coming from. It made it complex for the
entrepreneurship to perform confidentially while taking risks in the country's market.
The arrival of
internet and digitisation across the country also made entrepreneurship facing challenges because
the entrepreneurs needed to study various core aspects to understand the impacts of the
consumers demands. How the organisation in which they are leading is going to make the
necessary changes to adapt towards the seen changes etc.
United
Kingdom's becoming one with the global economy and arrival of the effective banking systems
made it easy for the country to reach wider markets and increase its economy's profitability
along. The industries in United Kingdom such as clothing and retail started innovating new
products to deal with competition and in order to gain new consumers. Tesco along did the same
thing in order to widen its consumer base and increase it profitability. In turn its leadership saw
new markets leading towards growth and an increase in business. Its entrepreneurship with the
new innovations of the company became more conscious about the consumer choices and the
cultures in which they reside. What were making these consumers choose the products of the
company and why innovation was necessary to fulfil these consumer demands.
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It made the
entrepreneurship become aware about the necessary changes that United Kingdom and its
economy bought to the country. Innovation made the entrepreneurship suffer for a while in terms
of learning and understanding its impact(Dees, 2017). As the time passed the entrepreneurship of
Tesco and the overall United Kingdom became more strong towards taking new risks and
identifying new markets while keeping the innovation at its required pace.
4. Tesco and the innovations impact on organisation's entrepreneurship
Tesco produces a wide variety of products ranging from groceries to clothing. The
organisation has to constantly innovate new products in order to stand in the competitive
environment of United Kingdom. If the produced goods by the organisation are not being
innovated regularly, it can shift the consumers demand and their preferences towards the
organisation's competitors. It can make Tesco suffers in terms of leading and managing a
successful organisation.
Constant innovation also impact the organisation's entrepreneurship as while innovating a
new product the organisation needs new strategies and efforts to launch that new product in the
market(Freel, 2016). The entrepreneurship or the leaders and managers of Tesco has to decide
how they can successfully make the innovated product reach in the market towards its desired
consumers. This provides the entrepreneurship with a new responsibility every time when there
is a new product launch.
Innovation requires new ideas and thoughts and the organisation has to choose or recruit
those employees which are creative and intelligent. It creates a huge responsibility on the Tesco's
entrepreneurship where it has to find such skilled employees for the organisation(Gruber and
et.al., 2015). The leaders and managers of Tesco needs to understand what creative needs are
going to be required in a person to make sure the fulfilment to consumer needs. They have to
particularly find out the skills and have to later recruit those employees which hold those
particular skills.
Innovation involves risk, because there is no certainty whether the innovated product will
prove as a success or failure in the market(Hristov and Reynolds, 2015). The taken risk can
either make the organisation lead towards profitability or can make it face huge losses. The risk
is taken on the identified market analysis, trend research, forecasting etc. If the taken risk leads
the organisation towards losses and the product's performance fails it can make the organisation's
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entrepreneurship's confidence low. The entrepreneurship tends to hesitate while taking risks the
very next time when there is an opportunity for innovation.
Innovation requires huge investment from Tesco. To innovate a new product the
organisation's entrepreneurship has to understand the consumers needs and wants(Kabukcu,
2015). These needs and wants are identified by using a number of techniques such as forecasting,
trend analysing etc. The usage of these techniques requires a huge effort by the organisation's
staff and also makes the organisation invest a lot. The entrepreneurship of Tesco has to decide
weather the organisation should invest in innovation or not. It has to implement a team to
understand that the organisation should invest in innovating new product or not.
The entrepreneurship of Tesco has to put large efforts in understanding the consumer's
requirement. This increases its responsibility and makes it to put constant efforts in
understanding what consumers wants.
The above factors explain how Tesco's innovation impact the organisation
entrepreneurship. Along with it, it also explores those factors which makes the organisation's
entrepreneurship to deal with innovation practices.
5. Conclusion and discussion
From the above showcased impacts on innovation it has been identified that
entrepreneurship today is facing huge challenges because of innovation(Kim and Min, 2015). As
innovation requires creativity, investment, large efforts etc. it distracts entrepreneurship from
achieving its organisational goals and objectives and keeps its focused towards making
innovation successful. Although, today's entrepreneurs are realised as how innovation will
impact the particular organisation and its goals and objectives, yet there are new challenges that
keep occurring and makes entrepreneurship weak. The mangers of Tesco has to be aware of the
right strategies they can use while successfully launching an innovated product and make it
successful within its desired consumer base.
As seen above, there are huge chances that the entrepreneurship might going to face new
challenges in near future. It can be seen that because of the arrival of internet and globalisation,
consumers demands are constantly shifting(Kurnia and et.al., 2015). The entrepreneurship has to
determine how it will cope up with these changes and will lead the organisation towards growth
and success. Along with it, the arrival of new technology is a factor that in future might make the
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entrepreneurship work easy. Better technology will help the entrepreneurship in manage their
responsibilities easily and creating an environment that is receptive towards organisations growth
and success.
Other observed trends include the growth of new markets which might make the future
managers or leaders understand new cultures and their demands, this in turn will shift their focus
from the organisational goals and objectives to understand these cultures and wants(Littlewood,
D. and Holt, 2018).
From the analysis, it should be recommended to the managers that they should increase
their ability to understand the market needs. Also, they should be able to identify different
cultures and their demands. It will make it easy for the entrepreneurship to understand various
contexts that comes under achieving required organisation goals and objective. Along with it, the
managers should adopt necessary skills to train their employees as per the situations needs and
demands and the changes arriving in innovation(Parker, 2018).
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been identified that what factors of innovation impact the
entrepreneurship. Along with it, the importance of innovation, entrepreneurship and
sustainability to the economic firm has also been explained vividly in context of TESCO. The
report describes the innovation challenge faced by the company and also describe the factors that
affect the firm's ability in order to respond those challenges. At last, in includes the necessary
recommendation and methods to address those challenges and how the managers should deal
with the impacts of innovation.
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