p Clarke announced Tesco's latest quarterly results, and a depressing set of figures they are too. There is much discussion that the Tesco PLC board needs a significant shake-up and that Clarke needs all the help he can get to turn around the big Tesco supertanker. ESM suggests that Tesco should turn to their former CEO and chairman Lord Ian MacLaurin, who ESM believes is the real personality who drove Tesco to its once pre-eminent position in the European grocery trade.
MacLaurin is the best type of Englishman: as a young man he played football for Chelsea, was a first class cricketer, a former head of the ultra exclusive Marylebone Cricket Club, and a keen and ultra competitive golfer.
We recently saw a fit, tanned MacLaurin at a Bath rugby premiership game at the Recreation Ground at Bath sitting beside his good pal Bruce Craig, the new owner of Bath Rugby Club, who like MacLaurin is a seriously rich man. Craig has recently sold his pharmaceutical services company Markerm for a cool £975 million.
MacLaurin could be just the man to advise Philip Clarke on the strategy Tesco needs to employ in order to extract itself from the sticky wicket in which it currently resides.
One of Tesco’s greatest costs and assets, which is seldom mentioned by commentators, is its 500,000+ staff. If top management (especially in HR), individual store managers, and the individual departmental managers within each store could motivate their staff to be much more customer-friendly by welcoming people, by answering their questions, and by directing them in a positive and helpful manner when they are searching for a product, the company's image would improve. Finally, they might thank customers at checkouts, and encourage them to shop at Tesco again. Every little invitation helps!
