Tesco three-year plan to be done in a year

THE chief executive of Tesco yesterday said it could take 18 months for the supermarket to move ahead of its rivals as he moves to reset the business after years of tough trading.

Philip Clarke told The Sun that he plans to cram a three-year overhaul into the next 12 months, including a raft of initiatives dealing with online, price and home delivery.

Mr Clarke, who replaced Sir Terry Leahy last year, said: “We had a three-year plan for the UK, but now we’re going to do it all in 2012. This is the beginning of a big change.”

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His comments comes after Tesco said it would create 20,000 jobs in the UK over the next two years in customer service, refreshing existing stores and opening new ones.

Mr Clarke also told the Financial Times that the group’s US arm Fresh & Easy could break even later this year after racking up around £700m in losses since its launch in 2007.

The Liverpudlian has admitted that last Christmas had been disappointing after its Big Price Drop campaign flopped, prompting a near £5bn slump in its market value. The grocer has lost market share as it triggered a price war with rivals, including Sainsbury’s Brand Match scheme and Leeds-based Asda’s guarantee to be 10 per cent cheaper than rivals.

Mr Clarke said: “Last summer was tough because we were diagnosing what had gone wrong in the UK, testing ideas. Christmas wasn’t great, but it hasn’t been great for two or three years.”

He went on: “It’s fairly obvious to me that we had been asking our colleagues to do too much. Now they can get ahead again.”

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