Tesco

Some one said it and I don't have time to check the reference so I hope the ethics committee will turn a blind eye in this hot day while the games are going on and I have to sit here and write a report about TESCO….

Some one said it: "if you are not online you do not exist"

Off course I'm not going to write regarding an IS topic and say… you know what TESCO would have been as competitive if they were not investing in their IT systems.

but NO I know for sure they could not have been so competitive and yes IT did give them a competitive edge!

but it is not only important to make a decision to implement one system or the other. the most important step that TESCO did is explore all the potential that the system they implemented had to offer. (this requires a full integration and adoption of any system in the company from top to bottom). This might sound not so important for the case but whether from personal opinion or from analyzing the culture of the other competitors when they were applying the fidelity card system I know that you don't just implement a system because others did.

from my personal experience I was in charge of setting in place a fidelity card system (not anywhere close to the electronic card system that TESCO has in place, since I was designing it for an african market) after the customers showing a considerable enthusiasm for the idea it was shortly stopped after launch particularly because the top management was not convinced that the system will bring any added value. For them it was just a new fresh graduate in a managerial position that needs to come up with new ideas to show he is worth his salary and this has translated into the project being discarded at the lower levels of the companies even if it was adopted by the clients.

I might be sharing this story just to vent or to blame others for my failure but for a reason I felt that this has a lot in common with TESCO's competitors. not only were they late to adapt to the system they as well adopted it for the wrong reasons… they adapted it because others did.

which leads to my main point TESCO invested heavily in their loyalty card system, and after implementing it they used the data collected to improve their business model and profitability (ie: by using the data to adjust the basket of products on sale). Had they not been aware of the potential of such a system and had they not been planing carefully to use the benefits, this system would have been a huge loss!

not only going on line and having a loyalty card system will not give you a competitive advantage but rather using the valuable data that these systems allow you to collect and being ready to trust your systems enough to change your business according to the analysis you derive from them is what give you a competitive advantage.