Analyzing Tesco's Business Operations and Leadership

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BUSINESS CONTEXT OF BUSINESS
Assignment1and 2
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Table of Contents
Assignment 1..............................................................................................................................3
Introduction............................................................................................................................3
Discussion..............................................................................................................................3
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................5
Assignment 2..............................................................................................................................6
Introduction............................................................................................................................6
Overview of the organization.................................................................................................7
Rationale for choosing the organization................................................................................8
Vision, Management practice, leadership styles and organizational strategies.....................8
Culture and management style influencing thebusiness functions and strategies with
specific examples.................................................................................................................10
Recommendations................................................................................................................12
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................13
References List.........................................................................................................................14
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Assignment 1
Introduction
In this age of rapid digital revolution, the way the businesses were being carried out in the
previous years have changed dramatically. The availability and the advancement of
technology has helped numerous businesses to perform their activities on the global
platform.Moreover, a business has to maintain their compliance with the principles of
Corporate Social Responsibility, so that the business ethics can be well followed. This study
will thus understand the dynamic as well as changing nature of the business and will even
assess the future of the organizations within the global environment of business. It will also
identify the need for the organisation and the individuals to responsibly manage and behave
ethically with respect to cultural, environmental, social issues.
Discussion
Social responsibility can be considered as an ethical theory where individuals are responsible
for carrying out their civic duty and such actions need to benefit the overall society. This
leads to an appropriate balance between the welfare of the environment along with society
and economic growth (Prezoto, 2018). If individuals are able to maintain this certain
equilibrium, then it can be stated that social responsibility has been accomplished. Currently,
the business environment is changing drastically and the advancements in technology have
bought the concept of global business into reality. It is necessary for business professionals to
consider the ethical factors for their business, which requires them to adhere to the specific
principles of corporate social responsibility within a global business environment. There are
several reasons regarding the importance of managing sustainably, responsibly, and behaving
ethically is association with cultural, social, economic, and environmental issues. Firstly,
many issues have been identified existing in the environment that threatens the future and
present of the human race. Resource depletion, global warming, and such other climate
changing issues have been brought into light that are majorly occurring due to the impact of
several operations carried out by different industries across the globe (Balqiah et al., 2017).
Therefore, it is necessary for organizations to indulge in environmental friendly operations
that ensure the sustainability and safety of the environment. In terms of economic growth,
trades amongst countries have proven to be beneficial for both countries since the economic
status of the countries change due to such liberating trade affairs. Currently, countries have
dropped or reduced charges of import and export due to which it is easier for organizations to
indulge in the global market (Casson and Pavelin, 2016). However, this also means that the
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local businesses of the host countries are not appreciated as much due to these multinational
organizations. Therefore, the global organizations need to ensure that the local organizations
and communities are not disrespected that can lead to long term existence of the organization
within the global market. Similarly, culturally individuals have been able to understand the
impact of multinational organizations on their society, community, and culture that may not
be positive at all times. Therefore, it is highly necessary for the organization to understand
the needs and requirements of the cultures of the different areas that can help them work
accordingly. Corporate social responsibility is one such concept and practice that has helped
individuals and their businesses to cater to the cultural, economic, social, and environmental
needs and requirements on a global level.
Corporate social responsibility is associated with operations conducted in a sustainable and
ethical manner and that has the ability of dealing with the social and environmental impacts
of the operations. Therefore, the practices of corporate social responsibility are associated
with careful consideration of the society, environment, the community, and human rights in
the location of the business operations (Cramer, 2017). Ethical practices and considering
practices of social responsibility not only demonstrate the seriousness of the organization
towards the society and the environment, it also impacts their success in the global market.
Modern customers have gained awareness regarding the current condition of the environment
that leads them towards purchasing products and availing services from organizations that
demonstrate a sense of responsibility towards the society and the environment. More than
91% of the consumers across the globe accept organizations to be responsible and adopt
practices of corporate social responsibility and 84% are concerned with purchasing products
that are developed through sustainable business operations (Alonso‐Almeida et al., 2015).
For instance, multinational organizations such as Tesco have adopted several practices of
corporate social responsibility in order to gain the trust and loyalty of the consumers. They
aim to achieve zero carbon print by the year 2025 that can be considered as part of a practice
of corporate social responsibility.
Moreover, impacts of corporate social responsibility require their leader to have modern
approaches towards the business operations that can be integrated with ethical factors and
organizational beliefs. The decision making process of the leader is greatly influenced by the
practices of corporate social responsibility since it changes various parameters of the
business. Sometimes the material utilized for a specific product may not be eco-friendly due
to which it requires change according to the current needs and requirements of the
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environment. In such cases, the leader requires making decisions regarding change of
material that will affect the operational costs along with changes in the supply chain
(Picciotto, 2017). These are the ways in which corporate social responsibility can influence
the sense of responsibility of an organization along with their image while encouraging the
leaders to adopt much more responsible approaches towards their business operations.
Conclusion
This essay presented a discussion regarding reasons and importance of managing sustainably
and responsibly and behaving ethically that are associated with environmental, economic,
cultural, and social issues. In the current rapidly changing business environment, global
business and market are necessities of a business. However, they need to consider the ethical
factors associated with the society, environment, and culture in order to conduct their
business operations without any hindrance. Practices of corporate social responsibility are
essential in case of demonstrating awareness towards the associated environment and society
and it compels the leader of an organization to bring significant changes to their business
operations in order to cater to the needs and requirements of the environment and society.
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Assignment 2
Introduction
A business has myriads of functions and activities carried out by responsible leaders and
managers in order to attain the organizational goals and objectives. A successful business not
only incorporates business strategies but also has exceptional leadership. Anorganization may
have all such fundamental things that are required for operating the business, however lack of
a prominent leader will jeopardize their position in the market. This study will thus focus on
the different aspects of leadership and management and will even recommend a particular
leadership style or practice that can be adopted by a business for their growth and success. In
order to understand the aspects clearly the study has chosen Tesco, a leading supermarket
chain headquartered in United Kingdom.
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Overview of the organization
Tesco Plc is a British multinational grocery as well as retailer of general merchandise that is
headquartered in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. Tesco has been by far one of the largest
commercial and grocery store chains both in terms of their annual income and number of
stores. This is an international company that has been operating in dozen countries and this
incorporates both Europe as well as Asian regions. The organization’s annual revenue in the
UK from the year to the year 2018 has been depicted in the below figure.
Figure 1: Annual Revenue of Tesco in the UK from 2015 to 2018
(Source:statista.com, 2019)
The organization has a brand value of 9.08 billion USD and their brand value in UK is 10.8
billion USD. The organization has 4,60,000 employees as in 2017 and has 6569 shops as on
2018. The market share of the brand has even been portrayed in the figure given below:
Figure 2: Market share of Tesco
(Source:statista.com, 2019)
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The organization’s market share has been shown in comparison to their toughest competitors
like Asda, Sainsbury, Aldi, Lidl, Waitrose and so on.
Rationale for choosing the organization
Tesco has been continuing to diversify their products in different genres and in recent times
they have been concentrating more on the selling of the bio-products and even advocating a
healthy lifestyle. Moreover, Tesco being a global business still has plans to expand their
business more and more in nooks and corners of the world deeply. These are some the valid
reasons why they need effective leaders along with enhanced management practices that can
help them not only to make business expansions but also to focus on the diversified products
and services which they have already introduced in the market (Tesco Controls, Inc, 2019).
Tesco has to adopt to number strategies that can not only help them to cope up with the
business operation but also can take their leadership and management programs to a different
level. This study has thus chosen Tesco for discussing on the various aspects of management
and leadership aspects and theories along with the organizational culture.
Vision, Management practice, leadership styles and organizational strategies
The organization has the chief vision, which encompasses more than a single perspective as it
refers to the way a business can be done, innovation, communities, management, leadership
and employees. Thus, the vision of the organization is to be a highly valued business by the
way they serve their customers, and the communities in which they operate, the committed
colleagues and obviously the shareholders (Bellet al., 2018).
In order to understand the way, the organization can carry out their management practices it
is necessary understand the roots of management. Management is an organized endeavor and
the five pillars of a successful management is entrepreneurial approach resource utilization
and allocation, timing, accomplishment as well as provision against a failure. There are
number of management approaches namely, classic approach, behavioral
approach,quantitative approach as well as contemporary approach which the business of the
world has to well consider. Tesco has a distinctive purpose and have people who are working
together within a deliberate systematic structure and hence it is necessary for them to adopt
such practices that can serve the organizational vision well. Tesco has different managers at
different level namely the top managers, middle managers as well as the first line managers
(Chang, 2016).
The chief function of the managers is to plan, organize, lead and control. The managers of the
organization play a distinctive role that can be categorized as informational roles, decisional
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roles and interpersonal roles. In order to make further global expansion and for better selling
of their diversified products, the management practices involve the exercise of the
conceptual skills,technical,interpersonal as well as political skills too. For an example, in
case of making anexpansion of the business in the emerging nations, the managers ensured
their communication skills was at its best so that they can match their operation with the
culture of the emerging nations (Maylor et al., 2016).
It has been assessed that there are number of factors that have been redefining management
and this can be the changing workplace, changing technologies, trust and ethical issues as
well as economic uncertainties. Thus, it has been assumed that innovation has been the most
important thing which helps the managers to take the business to enhanced level
(Mamic,2017).
A leader and their leadership style also play a vital role in an organization and in this
context, Tesco is not an exception. Although the leaders and managers may seem to be
playing a synonymous role but there is a subtle line of difference between the two.
Leaders seems to have visions whereas the managers have a deep focus. The difference
between the two has been given in the following section:
Leaders
Leaders do the right things
Monitor guest expectations
Communicate values and vision
Manage procedures and systems
Support people
Engages in a continuous improvement
Managers
They do things right
Direct operations
Enforce rules and policies
Design tasksandprocedures
Control results
Foster stability
Table 1: Difference between leaders and managers
(Source: Created by the learner)
There are number of leadership theories that needs to be considered in this genre for better
understanding of the leadership styles and concepts. Leadership theories can be aligned with
transactional, transformational, Situational and Personality based leadership styles.
Through a system of reward and punishment the transactional leaders keep motivating their
employees and this it can be said that Tesco while making the sale of their healthy ad bio
diversified products can adopt this leadership style. Transformational leaders on the other
hand works along with the team and thus identifies the change and guides the employees with
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inspiration. A situational leader within the organization adopts leadership style as per the
situation they face (Yahayaand Ebrahim,2016).
An organization need to have number of strategies that can help the mangers to function
appropriately and lead towards development of people. The managers and theirdecision-
making process forms one of the most important strategies undertaken by an organization like
Tesco.This decision should be rational, logical as well as consistent choices that help in
maximizing values. Apart, from this the human resource process and their functioning also
should be the key strategies which the organization needs to focus upon (Anderson et al.,
2017).
Culture and management style influencing thebusiness functions and strategies with
specific examples
Tesco being one of the top-rated retail organizations of the world has been able to implement
the best management practices and leadership styles.This is done in order toadopt the
appropriate policies as well as strategies within a changing environment for meeting the
stakeholder’s interest (Al-Aliet al., 2017).
For an example in Tesco, the hiring process involves number of internal assessment centers
that are being run by the managers. The applicants are being given several exercises and
different team working activities too (Andersonet al., 2017). This has been one the
management policies that are being constructed to meet the needs of the internal stakeholders
like the employees as well to satisfy the needs of the external stakeholders namely the
customers. The hiring policies for the organizationshave well aligned with the changing
business environment and the management practice played a crucial role in this.
Since, the organization has been endeavoring to expand more and more, it has been able to
find ways out by which they can concentrate on new strategies in order to get rid of the
organizational challenges and issues. The organizational policies related to the maintenance
of the organizational culture plays a vital role in this respect. Tesco for an example, has been
focusing more and more on diversity and women empowerment and thus the strategies and
the management policies undertaken by them has been able to enhance the organizational
culture and most significantly enhanced the brand value of the firm. The leaders with their
effective leadership style haveensured that inequality among all the employees is rightly
overthrown from the system (Arnoldet al., 2015).
Different leaders in Tesco has different leadership styles and as it is a customer-oriented firm
it definitely undertakes such strategies and policies that can meet the stakeholder
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interests. For an example the Tesco stores has autocratic leaders who although tells all their
staffs what to do but they do not let them get involved in the decision-making process. This
can be appropriate when the firm faces a crisis but not for all instances. When the
organization has been facing the allegation of doing a “greenwashing” wherein they were
accused of making falsification related to the sustainability approaches, this form of
leadership style can be appropriate (Tesco Controls, Inc, 2019). However, they have even
imbibed the democratic and the Laissez Faire approach wherein the teams are involved in
decisions and trust is being incurred on teams in order to take appropriate decisions
respectively. This has been influencing the business operationof Tesco thoroughly. The
ability to develop and grow is the key to rewarding life and successful and this is why they
have been promoting challenging tasks and growth (Eeph.org.uk,2019).
Team-oriented culture related to ownership has been fostering innovation, empowerment,
personal growth and they have a sincere desire to serve their clients which has a direct
influence on the business. Tesco has ESOP committee that has the employee and owners
involved for the welfare of their personnel (Performancemagazine.org, 2013).
Recommendations
In order to improve the leadership styles as well as the management practices, Tesco needs to
make several amendmentsfor a better design and development of the organization. Firstly,
the organization has to align valid change management programs with their leadership styles
and practices. In consideration of the healthy lifestyle that are being adopted by the customers
both in the domestic and international market, it is necessary that the business undergoes
definite change programs that can drive the sales of their healthy and organic products. This
is meant for the betterment of the business activities. The management of the firm must know
how to keep track of their finances and thus they can opt for ratio and budget analysis as an
important practice.
The managers of Tesco must know how to deal with the information controls and thus it can
be recommended to keep their Management Information system updates. Moreover, it is
the responsibility of the managers to keep a track on performance management and hence use
of Balance Score Card must be done in abundance. Apart for this the decision-making
process on Tesco should be open to all and thus democratic leadership styles must be adopted
by the leaders for betterment of the organization.
Moreover, the tactical strategies which is being undertaken by the firm in order to remain
competitivedeserves a rethinking. Tesco needs to make a cut of warehouses and jobs,an
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inherent part of their turnaround strategy, both for UK and their international business.
However, such staffs should also be assigned with new roles so that it doesn’t create an
impact on the economy of the concerned countries.
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