Entrepreneurship Assessment: Tesco Plc - A Comprehensive Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Tesco Plc's entrepreneurial journey, focusing on the company's founder, Jack Cohen, and his key entrepreneurial traits. The introduction establishes the context of entrepreneurship, defining its role in business management and innovation, and introduces Tesco Plc as the chosen organization for the study. The main body delves into the entrepreneurial characteristics of Jack Cohen, such as passion, motivation, optimism, creativity, and risk-taking, and how these traits contributed to Tesco's success. It examines the company's strategies in identifying and capitalizing on market opportunities, from its humble beginnings as a market stall to its evolution into a multinational retail giant. The report also highlights the importance of innovation, team building, and leadership within Tesco, and how these elements fostered growth and sustainability. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, emphasizing the significant impact of entrepreneurship on Tesco's development and its contributions to the economy and society.

Entrepreneurship
Assessment

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Entrepreneurship deals with the management and the development of the ventures of
business so that the profit can be earned when the company take many risks in the world of
corporate. It also states the willingness a person have to start a new business. An entrepreneur is
a person who incorporate a company and then runs his own business with the limited resources
available. They plan the functioning and the management of business in such a way that they
reach the set goals and targets. The entrepreneur are responsible for the rewards which they
receive and also the risk which is associated with the business and its activities (Lichy and Favre,
2018). The entrepreneurs are the ones who create new ideas and bring innovation to the market
with their skills and talent. They are the people who are very good at taking risks and upon
gaining growth from the said innovation they help in getting profit and generating huge revenue
to the company. This further helps in the economic development of the country and also with the
upliftment of the society. The organisation which is chosen for this report is TESCO PLC. The
company was established in the year 1919. Tesco is a leading multinational organisation situated
Welwyn Garden city in England, UK, that deals in the merchandise retail and grocery. The report
explains the entrepreneurial organisations and its entrepreneurs. It also explains the contribution
of a company in the economy of the country and the people of the society.
MAIN BODY
Tesco Plc was founded in the year 1919 by Jack Cohen. It is a public limited company.
Jack Cohen, an entrepreneur who founded Tesco plc, was born in the year 1898 who was an
English grocer. The brand name TESCO was created by him by using the initials of the tea
supplier namely: T.E Stockwell, who earlier used to supply tea to him.
Jack Cohen, who is an entrepreneur of the company TESCO have many traits in his
personality which makes him unique from others (Hashim and Lee, 2018). The first trait is:
Passion. He had passion for his work and being successful. He had no cravings for the money as
he was more focused on the development of his business passionately. His thinking was that the
business is to be passionately done and the money received will be the reward of his hard work.
The second trait is: Motivation. He was always dedicated to his work and he did not make others
do his work. He worked really hard day and night to bring Tesco to the level where the brand is
very famous and well known to everyone, not only in UK but all over the world. Jack Cohen had

one principle which he followed throughout his life. The principle stated that the actions of
anyone should be such that it motivates others to dream big and learn. The third trait is:
Optimism. This trait helped him to develop an approach that was positive so that no negativity
could pull him back and affect his work (Abidi and Nakagawa, 2018). His vision for the
company was clear and he made his team believe in his goal. He was constantly involved in
achieving goals by working hard for it as making goals is easy but working to achieve them is a
task. The next trait is: Creativity. Jack Cohen believed in doing things creatively using his skills
and talent and in a way which is always unique. He goes out of the box to think of something
new and then implement the same to achieve success. By thinking creatively of any business
ideas, an entrepreneur gains lots of success. Creativity helps in the implementation of a mere
though into reality which increases the brand value of the company. The another trait of him is
that he is a risk taker. Any entrepreneur who wants to success is never afraid of taking any kind
of risk pertaining to business and its activities (Angwin and Cummings, 2017). Jack Cohen was
also determined to achieve all his goals and targets set. For this he went through many risk in his
business which resulted him with the position he have currently and the brand value his company
have.
Entrepreneur by searching the market and researching for the creation of ideas, discover
new opportunities and the ideas which they can implement to gain success. To seek those
opportunities they they observe various different factors that could help them sustain competition
in the market, such as: political, economical, social, technological, environmental and legal
factors. It is the type of cognitive process that mainly relies on the abilities of the people so that
they are able to recognise the patterns and then connect all the dots to summaries everything and
work in direction to gain the edge of competition. The business which was started by Jack Cohen
started with an idea of a market stall and gradually he became a wholesaler in the market. While
starting any business, an entrepreneur must start it with an idea which can be transformed into
something which have value as every business after sometimes is converted into an opportunity.
Grabbing opportunities helps an entrepreneur create value of the business in the market targetted
and also allows them to take advantage of the same in business (Bhattacharya, 2021). Jack
Cohen did the same thing, he started with a small business and seek opportunities in the market
and grabbed it. Initially he was indulge in selling of the groceries from one of the stall at London.
He used all of his money in the same and then some time later he started keeping few items of

food which were affordable by the people. This was the phase where he thought of grabbing
opportunities and take a step forward. In the year 1924, he brought Tesco Tea as his first brand
product. By seeking opportunities and studying market, Jack Cohen recognised those
opportunities built an empire while making it reachable to every type of people at affordable
prices so that every individual can buy the products. The first Tesco store was established by
Jack Cohen in 1929 in which he was selling tea and food items.
Innovation in any organisation leads to the stairs of success. It is one of the effective
process through which the name of the brand increases (Bryson and et. Al ., 2020). Innovation is
something which is unique and it created by using talent and skills. Innovation can also be an
improvement of any existing product or services. This creation of the unique ideas helps a
business to grow and succeed. Form the the productivity of the business is improved and also the
profitability is increased which further helps in the increase of competition in the market along
with raise value of shares. The efficiency of the company is increased with the help of innovation
as the competition is increased (Chat, 2021). This helps in increasing the quality of the products
and services and lowering down the cost of them. After the success of his first first brand name
i.e. Tesco tea in 1924, he planned to add few more things to the store so as to attract more
customers, so he added dry food items which were sold at affordable prices and were in high
demand. Jack Cohen took the opportunities which were on his way while taking risk with his
business which lead to growth and success of the company.
For any business, innovations is very important as it solves the problems pertaining to the
business very easily. By bringing innovation, creative ideas can be brought in an organisation
which is very helpful in many ways. In case there is any problem in the business, an innovation
can be brought which will help the company to increase its productivity which raises the profit
earned. Innovation basically leads to the upliftment of any business organisation. It can be done
either by bringing new creation to the organisation or by improvising the existing products or
services. With the help of innovation, an organisation gains competitive advantage over the other
companies (Hara, 2020). With very little creativity an idea can be created, an entrepreneur just
have to think out of the box to catch the ideas. Jack Cohen is the only person responsible for its
increased brand name value as he took risk by grabbing the opportunities which were available
to him in desire to achieve success. His innovative thing and taking risk for the achievement of
success lead to the growth and success of the company.

At the start of any new venture of any start up it is important for an entrepreneur to have
a good team which will help in the growth of business which further leads to the sustainability of
the venture. Having only the capital amount and the time to start the business is not enough fro
any organisation. It is important that the organisations have good and hard-working team which
helps the organisation in carrying out the business activities. As the enterprises work with a
futuristic goals and targets therefore it is important that the people they hire or employee are all
indulge in futuristic thinking and an approach with which they involve themselves in the creation
of new ideas which could benefit the company (Souiden, Amara and Chaouali, 2020). The
employees shall be such who are constantly indulge in adding more value to the company why
implementing the ideas so created into reality. Start ups are mostly challenging and therefore the
employees chose shall be right so that the aim of the formation of such an organisation is
achieved with their help. Similarly an effective team building was done by Jack Cohen to have
its venture successful. With the help of his team he had successfully build the empire he desired
of the groceries which is very dominant in every market to which it has expanded its operations.
At the start of hiring of the people he firstly sort the requirements out of the business and then
accordingly hired employees according to the role where they were needed in several different
departments. He gave a lot of time in selecting the people he should hire who have different view
points, perspective and the insights that could later be beneficial for the company. Tesco follow a
hierarchical structure which comprises of many different levels of management having different
powers and authorities. In this type the leaders and the managers of the company manage their
teams at different levels (Jelassi and Martínez-López, 2020). He made sure that the people who
were hired by him are all efficient and are so engaged that the fact motivates other employees
which could help in the enhancement of their performance.
Jack Cohen was a good leader who made sure that the teams members were working
efficiently which lead to the expansion of his business in a very large and successful
organisation. His main focus apart from the work was to build ability and develop all the
members of the team in such a way that they achieve the set goals and targets. While making any
decisions, an entrepreneur is requires to stay focused on the gaols of future which he plans on
achieving and then accordingly they have to take decisions (Herold, 2018). This also helps in
bringing new opportunities to the business.

A successful leader is the person who builds vision. He provides his team members and
the employees motivation and also let them know of the picture of the vision he have in mind for
them and for the company. A leader is the person which is always engaged in an open
communication which is transparent and honest. This helps in making clear and unambiguous
communication with the team members by delivering them with the set goals and objectives of
the company, providing them with appreciations, criticisms and feedbacks. This helps in
bringing transparency in between the leader and its employees. This is done by the leader so that
the employees are always motivated to face the challenges that comes to their way uncalled. It is
important that the leader is always carrying his positive attitude as positivity helps to remain
calm and take decisions which are efficient for the company and its growth. Positive attitude of a
leader also helps in motivating employees of an organisation.
For a leader to be effective it is important that they are brave and are open to face
challenges coming their ways (Almeida and Santos, 2018). They are also expected to take
decisions in this situations with a positive attitude so that the challenges are faced efficiently.
The leaders are expected to gain trust of his employees so as to ensure the engagement of his
team. The leader must always calmly manage his workforce and must deal in a composed
manner with the mistakes done by them. Jack Cohen at the start, invested his time in the building
of the level of trust of his team upon him so that they work jointly in a systematic and an
organised manner. This will helps the company to achieve its goals with the help of all the
employees effectively and smoothly (Keiningham and et. al., 2020).
Tesco Plc is one of the multinational business organisation that mainly deals in the
groceries and also in the general merchandise retailing. The headquarters of the said company is
situated in England, in the city of Welwyn Garden. The entrepreneur of the Tesco Plc is Jack
Cohen. He founded the said company in the year 1919. The name of the brand as Tesco was
appeared firstly in the year 1924 when he brought in the market the Tesco Tea. With increase in
the profits of the company and its reputation in the market, he expanded his business by selling
dry food items along with the Tesco Tea. His first store was open by him in the year 1929. With
an immense success of his business, he though of expanding his business and for that he bough a
land in the north London where he established the new headquarter of this business and also a
warehouse. This was well known as it was the first warehouse in the country of the modern food.
He created many new ideas and broth many innovations in the organisation which provided its

customers with lots of savings. Jack Cohen also after its huge success expanded the operation of
his business in the year 1937, to the neighbour countries. He came later with an innovative idea
of the self service which totally changed the shopping culture in England in the year 1948. again
an store was opened by him and the customers had many reviews and reactions to this new
innovation of his. Soon after the rapid growth of Tesco in the market it got listed in the London
stock exchange in the year 1947.
During the period between 1950- 1960, the company was rapidly growing and acquired
more than 500 shops. The progress of it was remarkable as the company was day by day getting
bigger and successful. It was in the year 1958 when Jack Cohen opened his first supermarket
which also had a counter service where cheese, meat and butter were being sold. The most
common thing in the growth of the jack Cohen's company Tesco was that he was coming up with
varied options and innovation with its expansion which resulted in its growth and success
(Barrow, Barrow and Brown, 2018). In the year 1960, again jack Cohen included clothing and
household items which are sold at very low and affordable prices. Later in the year 1968, jack
Cohen opened another supermarket which was occupying 40000 sq ft of land and was selling
food items, cloths, household items, etc. at a very less and affordable rate making it available to
maximum number of people. Later, the company acquired many of the super markets so as to
become a leader of the market. At present, according to the gross revenue, Tesco is one of the
third largest retailer all over the world and according to the net revenues generated by the
company, it is the 9th largest company.
When jack Cohen was owning a stall in the market, he took help from his family member
in setting up his work. He and his wife both worked really hard and took no leaves even on
weekends so that their business is a huge success.
Tesco contribution in the economy of the England was very huge and still it is. With a
single stall initially, now jack Cohen has too many super markets and is a big name with huge
brand value. The country's economy was developed as the company provided with job
opportunities to many (Dries, 2019). It is not limited to only UK but the operations of Tesco are
globally spread which is also contributing to the economy of other countries.
Tesco has huge contribution in the creation of wealth and also huge amount of revenues
are generated worldwide. As per the reports of the market, it is stated that the company has
generated revenue around £63.911 Billion in 2019 and has almost around £1320 billions of net

income (Annushkina and Regazzo, 2020). From these two stated figure the creation of the wealth
by the company is clear. The amount of tax paid by the company is also very huge and rather in
millions and its contribution in the economy of the country is also very high due to all the
operations of the company and its other activities. The company is also spend a lot of amount on
its employees and the suppliers and also there exist free flow of funds.
The company also have its investments made in the businesses in UK which mostly are
the retail sectors. The company is focused on various sectors and projects that relates to stores,
property and also the projects related to energy efficiency. This is also contributing in macro
economy of a country.
With the immense contribution of the Tesco in the economy of the country through its
innovative ideas, it has come a long way. There is a lot of competition in the market and Tesco
have many competitors so recently to capture the market area widely, Tesco recently have
brought Jacks which is another chain of its company where they are providing its customers with
products on discounted rate on a very less price and the shopping of such products is value
oriented. This innovative idea has also provided with job opportunities. This also attracted the
people with low income as the products were available at less and discounted prices. This store
was named after by the entrepreneur who was the founder of Tesco i.e. Jack Cohen (Ibrahim and
Wang, 2017).
In the year 2019 and 2020, during the global pandemic, the business and its activities
were badly affected with the sudden emergence of the Covid-19. The Tesco company worked
really hard to overcome all the hardships it faced during the phase of pandemic. With the
situation getting worse, the whole world was critically impacted and was suffering. This created
a huge impact on the market and the business as the their was lock down announced by the
government in over over the world. No shops or markets were opened and many of the business
were shut down due to the severe amount of loss they suffered. As there was high demand of the
food and grocery during lock down, Tesco was demanded. Although the company was facing
many issues with the demands as it also had many competitors in the market. This brought down
with variety of offers and innovations so as to attract the customers during the pandemic so that
the companies sustain the competition in the market (Vazquez-Brust and Spence, 2018). Tesco
faced many survival issues the major of it was Competition in the market as most of the
customers were buying products from different stores so as to cut more cost and fulfil the basic

needs. The purchasing power of the customers was decreased as many people lost their jobs and
there were loss of lives. Everything was affecting the economy of the country.
The another issue of Survival during pandemic was Supply and Maintenance of
inventories. This was also one of the major survival issue as the transportation was shut and the
production of the products was also stopped due to the emergence of Covid-19. This lead to non
fulfilment of the needs and demands of the customers as the suppliers of the company do not
have much stock to be transported to the company. The business of all were globally affected as
the import and export was also made shut by the government to stop the spread of Covid- 19
(Abbott, 2017).
The another issue of survival was Purchasing power of the people. Due to Covid- 19,
there was reduction in the income of the people as they lost their jobs and no source of income.
Due to this their power to purchase anything was also reduced and most of them were surviving
only on the items which were necessary for them to live. This has also affected the Tesco
company badly as the revenues of them were affected.
The company's revenue were also affected as they have to pay the bills for maintenance
and electricity of their store even when the were not evening operating any business activities.
Many people are inclined towards online shopping which has majorly affected the business who
are offline.
The another issue of survival was Fluctuating market demands. Due to Covid- 19, the
situation of the market was poor. People were stocking all the items and were buying them in
bulk. This has majorly affected the stock ratio of the company which lead the company in non
fulfilment of the demands of customers. There was a time when the companies limits the
purchasing of per item to three or four maximum so that the company can further fulfil demands
of other customers (Lazaris and Freeman, 2018). The company also limited the purchase of the
products on online platform but this also did not helped company from not failing to maintain
inventories.
Tesco have a diversified line of production. Covid- 19 majorly increased the demand of
the basic necessary items like food and groceries. This gave huge advantage to Tesco. But the
products like: household items, clothing, etc. was affected majorly as it lead to the decrease in
the revenue. The company is still suffering from the losses which were incurred from the other
product line at Tesco.

CONCLUSION
From the above report it is concluded that, Entrepreneurs are the most important person
as he is the only one who is responsible in the development of the economy of the country. They
plays a major role in the upliftment of the society by providing people with job opportunities.
Entrepreneurship basically is establishment of the business and performing such activities
relating to it that is satisfying the needs and demands of the consumers in one way or the other.
Entrepreneur is only successful if he is willing to take risk and create new innovations to the
business. Tesco is a multinational company and a world famous brand which had developed
itself from a single stall at a market to what it is at present. It has adopted many innovation to the
business with the help of the efficient workforce and the leader jack Cohen. Leader plays major
role as he is the one who is responsible for taking all the decisions keeping in mind all the
futuristic goals are targets which are to be achieved by the company. Tesco has immensely made
its contribution in the development of the economy of the country and also in the upliftment of
the society by raising their living standards. Entrepreneurs are the main source who helps
majorly in the economic development. After the global pandemic, the businesses are majorly
impacted and they have face lots of survival issues. Many issues were solved by the Tesco but
few of the issues pertaining to survival are still being considered by the company.

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