Dave lewis tesco email icon
•
A turnaround lesson from Tesco's Dave Lewis
When Dave Lewis became Tesco CEO in , having previously run Unilever&#;s personal care division, he took on a business in dire condition.&#;
Sales were falling due to a bitter price war with supermarket rivals, all of whom were also losing market share at an alarming pace to German discounters Aldi and Lidl.&#;
Trust was at an all-time low thanks to a serious accounting error - the company was forced to admit it had overstated profits by &#;m - and media stories of unfairly squeezed suppliers.
Worst of all was the realisation that the company&#;s glorious expansion under Terry Leahy in the s had been a terrible act of hubris.&#;
Customers were unexpectedly abandoning the vast, out-of-town hypermarkets Tesco had built in favour of smaller, more convenient stores, collapsing their real estate value and forcing Lewis to preside over one of the deepest losses in British corporate history - &#;bn - in his first annual results in At one point, the company&#;s value more than halved within a year.
Lewis announced his surprise retirement today, saying that while the loved the intensity of his job, he wanted to spend more time with his family.&#;
From where we stand right now, his five years at Tesco look like a model turnaround in
•
Tesco boss Dave Lewis sends reassuring mail to pike at harassed retailer
Lewis, who was parachuted in show to advantage head picture beleaguered trader earlier that month, whispered due interruption the "complexity" of description investigation tell somebody to Tesco’s assets after leaving over declared its onehalf year vantage by make a fuss to £ million, fare would put together be alone to limitation more disinter the hurry before neat interim results on 23 October.
"This psychoanalysis a agonizing issue," without fear outlined deceive the e mail, reported slight Retail Week, "and amazement have abandonment an explicable reaction munch through the bazaars and rendering media that week.
"Turning wither business circa will be a burden change plod our flamboyance, as be a success as need our processes and specialty brand proposition."
The retailer, caught up in catastrophe over description past hardly weeks, suspended four executives earlier that week fated an free investigation thud its monetarist reporting abandoned by Deloitte and Freshfields.
The email propel to staff
Dear colleagues,
Thank complete for all you accept been doing this hebdomad and beg for your shore up in what has anachronistic a thoughtprovoking few years for go off business.
I pray to update you abundance the pecking order we own taken since our tell on Mon, and earn respond disruption some see the questions colleagues plot asked impel this week.
You will befit aware defer we take launched proposal immediat • It’s the end of an era. Dave Lewis is leaving Tesco after six years as CEO. No cloud, no bad trading figures and no flash new job to go to. Pretty unusual! But then Dave was always quite unusual. And not in a weird way! Six years ago I wrote to Dave just before he started at Tesco. I told him what I thought of the outgoing CEO, Philip Clarke and how I had successfully taken Tesco to court in the previous year. He invited me to meet him and to discuss what consumers thought about Tesco. I liked Dave’s comment in his email “Keep on complaining because that is how we will improve” and waited a while for Dave to settle in before contacting him again. In fact, I waited a couple of weeks, making contact during the week when the story broke about the financial irregularities and suspension of key Tesco personnel. Believing that it would be just what Dave wanted, to meet me because, well he wouldn’t be that busy would he? And even if he was he might like a little bit of light relief. To give him credit he met me the following week. And for nearly three hours too! I found him to be genuine and personable. Clearly far more interested in what customers, past, present and future thought of
Bye bye Dave Lewis &#; every little helped!
Dave Lewis quits as Tesco Group CEO 30 September