With Dave Lewis’ arrival at a rudderless Tesco being brought forward and the warning on profits again, it is fair to suggest that all is not sweetness and light in Cheshunt.

With Dave Lewis’ arrival at a rudderless Tesco being brought forward, the company slashing the dividend, warning on profits again and the share price plummeting to its 2003 level, it is fair to suggest that all is not sweetness and light in Cheshunt.

Mr Lewis, AKA ‘Drastic Dave’, is renowned for a bit of scalpel-wielding, so speculation has unsurprisingly turned to which superfluous Tesco appendages could be for the chop.

One area that will be ripe for evaluation will be international. Here, though, there appears to be very little that vulnerable. Operations in Ireland and Central and Eastern Europe, while not performing strongly thanks to troubled economies and a battering from Aldi, Lidl and Biedronka, are still profitable and have strong scope for further growth through e-commerce and c-stores.

Similarly, the remaining Asian businesses have returned to like-for-like growth and there is decent progress being made in convenience through Express, franchising and the launch of new concepts like 365 in South Korea.

Turkey is perhaps the only market that Tesco will want rid of, but given a lack of takers first time around, it might be the case that the business will remain in the fold. 

In the UK, there are a number of peripheral activities that are hanging on by more slender threads.

Loss-making Blinkbox is on shaky ground. Attempting to outflank Amazon and Netflix was always going to be a tall order, but perhaps more importantly is that the operation brings very little to the party in terms of augmenting the Tesco shopping experience.

There were some initially encouraging signs like the ‘night in’ fixture in Watford and cut-price movies being included in meal deals, but both of these have disappeared and the only tangible use of Blinkbox in stores is a few shiny end-caps in refurbished Extras that are intended to encourage sign-ups to the service.

Elsewhere, Harris + Hoole, Euphorium and Giraffe are all likely to be retained, as they have the dual merits of scalability and being accretive to the shopping experience. 

When all is said and done, concerning ourselves with the bells and whistles is missing the main point – namely what needs to be done to turn around the core UK supermarket and hypermarket business. Prices need be tweaked.

Not the ‘nuclear’ option, but some action to improve the value proposition versus Asda and Sainsbury’s. Prices need not be low; they need to be appropriate and clear. Complexity needs to be removed from the business.

The range is too big and labyrinthine promotional mechanics simply confuse shoppers and soak up inadequate manpower. This is perhaps the biggest issue: you can have the prettiest stores with the loveliest coffee shops, but a lack of hours in store really shows through in poor standards and wobbly availability.     

  • Bryan Roberts is insights director at Kantar Retail