Strategic analysis assignment on strategic intelligence and analyticsat Tesco

Question

Task: The strategic analysis assignmentwill identify a main challenge faced by a particular organisation. Discuss what analytical tool could assist in helping to analyse the issue. Outline how the analytical tool has addressed or improved the situation

Answer

Introduction
This strategic analysis assignmentwill gain a deeper understanding of Tesco's challenges. The strategic analysis assignmentconcludes with suggestions for how Tesco can enhance its overall business performance and maintain its competitive advantage in the long run. According to the results of this strategic analysis assignmentresearch, Tesco continues to hold a dominant position in the UK's grocery and general merchandise retail market, despite facing severe competition. Tesco's current operations are being hampered by declining revenue and profits, falling stock prices, rising employee turnover, and shrinking market share. Tesco also has problems with things like a lack of leadership and management, as well as issues with logistics, product quality, strategic planning, and employee morale.

Selected company’s background in the strategic analysis assignment
Regarding grocery stores in the UK, no other company comes close to the size and scope of Tesco. In 1919 it began operations for the first time. As per the findings of the strategic analysis assignmentit ranks ninth in sales volume but has the third-highest profits of any retailer worldwide. It has expanded into 12 new countries, including Thailand, Hungary, and Ireland, expanding its reach into global markets (Almeida et al., 2020). With a staggering 28.4% of the UK grocery, besides the general merchandise retail market, Tesco is the leader in the industry. However, both Tesco's operating and net income fell into the red in 2016/17, from £1072 million and £202 million in 2015/2016 to £1017 million and £145 million, respectively. As a result of the findings in the strategic analysis assignment, Tesco needs to investigate its business case to identify its challenges and develop strategies to overcome them.

The main challenge faced by Tesco mentioned in the strategic analysis assignment
Tesco's logistic service still relies on human workers, whereas many of its rivals have switched to using logistics companies to transport and deliver products to customers. Due to this, Tesco is unable to recover 30% of its lost sales value. Tesco's ineffective logistics strategy leads to confusion and friction within the company's management and staff due to a lack of accurate stock data. As a result of the competition from new participants, it has been found in this strategic analysis assignmentthat Tesco has been forced to decrease prices by £200 million, considerablydecreasing its profit margin (Brandon et al., 2020). Competition, domestic saturation, and the need for personal growth have all forced the company to look abroad for growth. The company is now using its store business model in multiple countries. While the low-price strategy mentioned in the strategic analysis assignmenthas been very successful, it does not serve all market segments equally well. In the eyes of those in higher socioeconomic brackets, low prices indicate a lack of commitment to product quality.

Tesco's continued success has depended on its ability to keep its global supply chain running smoothly, and the company's rapid expansion means it must adopt new methods of transport across continents (Garstang, 2021). It has been suggested in the strategic analysis assignmentthat Tesco perfect its knowledge of sea freight transport by constructing dock outs close to the water's edge in foreign countries and then transporting goods from the docks to the corresponding central warehouse units. When Tesco consider that they purchase from all over the world, this is a great way to save money on shipping.

Analytical tools in helping to analyse the issue considered in the strategic analysis assignment
Microsoft Power Bl
Microsoft's Power BI is a business analytics tool that, through a user-friendly interface, allows customers to perform data ingestion, processing, interactive visualisations, and business intelligence tasks independently. The Microsoft Power BI suite is a collection of tools designed to meet specific company requirements. Products consist of the following mentioned in the strategic analysis assignment: Power BI Desktop, Power BI Pro, Power BI Premium, Power BI Mobile, Power BI Report Server, Power BI Report Builder, and Power BI Embedded (Hashim et al., 2021).

Figure 1:Microsoft Power Bl
(Source- Hashim et al., 2021)

Data visualisation plays a crucial role in facilitating the human management of the business systems of Tesco. While computers may thrive on a steady diet of data, businesspeople require a more varied diet of information and must be able to digest it quickly and easily. As per the findings in the strategic analysis assignmentTesco can now quickly and accurately visualise key business data points from various sources in a single dashboard thanks to Power BI. Power BI has excellent visualisation capabilities and built-in Cortana integration in Tesco (Huang et al., 2019).

Analytical Tool - API
Akana's built-in analytics and monitoring features allow for quick, effective decision-making. This paves the way for line-of-business leaders to innovate metrics for the C-suite and enhance business results. With Akana, Tesco discussed in the strategic analysis assignmentcan create a single or several different dashboards incorporating business, operational, and API-centric analytics. The analytics provided by Akana is far more advanced than those offered by more conventional tools. Instead, unlike traditional API management platforms, Akana provides in-depth insights. Tesco needs a 360° view of the business impact of their APIs. APIs are the lifeblood of any industry's digital transformation (Libby, 2022). Incorporating API as per the strategic analysis assignmentwill be essential to the company's overall strategy. It would be helpful to improve some AI technologies that are already available, such as face recognition and QR codes, to create higher-level communication that is seamless between the systems.

Figure 2: Analytical Tool – API
(Source-Libby, 2022)

To develop engaging APIs, the API team uses existing in-house infrastructure. The API team is interested in learning about the overall health of the API program, the performance of individual APIs, and opportunities for API enhancement. It is found in this strategic analysis assignmentthat Tesco gets better apps because analytics data is shared with app developers. These programmers are using the company's application programming interface (API) in novel ways, resulting in valuable apps that bring in money for the business (Monte, 2021). Custom reports generated by API Monitoring and Analytics may vary slightly for Tesco due to the different data pipelines used.

Analysis in the strategic analysis assignment
SCRS is another great analytical tool for businesses. If a company adopts this approach, it will observe potential explanations in accordance with the significance established by its complete business strategy besides the state of the company. The tool's name is also an acronym for the four components involved in its use: process, existing conditions, needs, and a possible answer (Rosnizam et al., 2020). It is found in this strategic analysis assignmentthat using this will aid Tesco in ensuring that they consider all aspects of the issue. Tesco began in other sectors when it first established international offices in other countries. They started by examining the following:

Strategy: They needed a process to ensure that their stores could be opened in communities with a ready market for their goods.
Current state: After surveying the local retail landscape in the strategic analysis assignment, the company realised it could not simply open a branch of the American supermarket chain, Tesco, out of fear of a consumer backlash. They rebranded some of their stores under different names to better blend in with the neighbourhood. Requirement: Tesco's move into the area was predicated on the realisation that, due to the poor quality of the local air, the company as per thestrategic analysis assignmentwould need to offer the lowest prices available in the area in order to attract customers. They had to undercut the market by selling at prices below their rivals (Yumni&Widowati, 2021). Solution: One way that Tesco could sell in its Hungarian and Slovakian stores was by providing lower prices than those of its competitors. They uncovered the most affordable prices by conducting extensive research and then collaborated with their production teams besides suppliers to secure better deals on the goods they sold.

Conclusion
It is found in this strategic analysis assignmentthat Tesco was among the first supermarkets to implement a loyalty card system and exert significant control over the shift to e-commerce. However, big data and analytics offer potential solutions that can make efficiencies possible, whether it is by tackling significant obstacles or improving performance using cutting-edge technologies.Due to the proliferation of Internet-connected devices that produce vast quantities of strategic analysis assignmentdata, all kinds of sensors are finding uses in modern business. Employees in the fields of development and data science are urged to use open-source software in order to foresee emerging trends and lend their support to the open-source community whenever possible. Tesco's technical system, such as its global network of stores and distribution infrastructure, stands to gain a great deal from integrating the benefits of Big data technology with the Internet of Things (IoT) and a real-time analytics approach.

Recommendations
To increase the efficiency of R&D efforts, Tesco should recruit more experts and experienced personnel with training and development. Tesco needs to improve the aesthetics of its stores, expand its product selection, and ramp up its marketing initiatives. It has the potential to introduce novel approaches to product development, business management, and advertising. Using Porter's generic model mentioned in the strategic analysis assignment, Tesco can find ways to keep its competitive edge in the long run. The "Blue Ocean Strategic Model" can help Tesco address its weaknesses and expand its market share. The human resources strategies and plans that Tesco creates and implements can benefit from a blend of visionary, charismatic, and transformational leadership styles. As per the findings of the strategic analysis assignmentTesco needs to keep an eye on how well their R&D projects are doing and adjust course as necessary.

References
Almeida, J., Bezerra, M., Markl, D., Berghaus, A., Borman, P., &Schlindwein, W. (2020). Development and validation of an in-line API quantification method using AQbD principles based on UV-vis spectroscopy to monitor and optimise continuous hot melt extrusion process. Pharmaceutics, 12(2), 150. https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4923/12/2/150/pdf
Brandon, M., Belderson, P., Sorensen, P., Dickens, J., Sidebotham, P., Cleaver, H., ... &Wate, R. (2020). Complexity and challenge: a triennial analysis of SCRs 2014-2017. https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/74649/1/TRIENNIAL_SCR_REPORT_2014_to_2017.pdf
Garstang, J., Eatwell, D., Sidebotham, P., & Taylor, J. (2021). Common factors in serious case reviews of child maltreatment where there is a medical cause of death: qualitative thematic analysis. BMJ open, 11(8), e048689. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/8/e048689.abstract
Hashim, M., Nazam, M., Abrar, M., Hussain, Z., Nazim, M., & Shabbir, R. (2021). Unlocking the sustainable production indicators: a novel tesco based fuzzy AHP approach. Cogent Business & Management, 8(1), 1870807. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/23311975.2020.1870807
Huang, H., Luo, J., Moaveni, M., Qamhia, I. I., Tutumluer, E., & Tingle, J. S. (2019). Advanced analytical tool for flexible pavement design and evaluation. In Airfield and Highway Pavements 2019: Design, Construction, Condition Evaluation, and Management of Pavements (pp. 61-71). Reston, VA: American Society of Civil Engineers. https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/9780784482452.007
Libby, T., Schwebke, J., & Goldwater, P. (2022). Using data analytics to evaluate the drivers of revenue: An introductory case study using Microsoft Power Pivot and Power BI. Issues in Accounting Education. https://meridian.allenpress.com/iae/article-abstract/doi/10.2308/ISSUES-2021-057/481710
Monte, A. (2021). A study of value chain reconfiguration processes under Covid-19 pressures: the case of Tesco PLC in the United Kingdom. http://tesi.luiss.it/31586/1/261361_MONTE_ALESSANDRO.pdf
Rosnizam, M. R. A. B., Kee, D. M. H., Akhir, M. E. H. B. M., Shahqira, M., Yusoff, M. A. H. B. M., Budiman, R. S., &Alajmi, A. M. (2020). Market opportunities and challenges: A case study of Tesco. Journal of the Community Development in Asia (JCDA), 3(2), 18-27. http://ejournal.aibpm.org/index.php/JCDA/article/viewFile/807/772
Yumni, S. Z., &Widowati, W. (2021). Implementasi Microsoft Power BI DalamMemantauKehadiran dan TransportasiPegawai. JurnalSains dan EdukasiSains, 4(1), 1-8. https://ejournal.uksw.edu/juses/article/download/4237/1726