Business Ethics Are Moral Principles

Tesco is a British multinational grocery and general merchandise retailer, it has stores in 14 countries across Asia, Europe and North America and is the grocery market leader in UK, where it has a market share of around 30%.

Tesco Plc is a Public Limited Company who securities and shares are included in the stock exchange and list of different countries. In UK, companies like Tesco Plc are registered under the companies Act 1980 and its shared are offered to public in regards of limited liability. In addition, Tesco is associated with retail sector that carries out a majority business of the company and contribute their share in country’s economy to a huge scale. Apart from the retail sector, Tesco Plc faced tough competition all over the world from companies like Wal-Mart, Asda, Sainsbury, and others. Although, Tesco is not in dominating position in the current retail market in the UK, but the company is one of the biggest retail companies working in the UK, North America, Asia, Europe and other. The company

Tesco PLC is a major food retailer that operates primarily in the United Kingdom. The company operates 2,291 supermarkets, superstores and convenience stores in the United Kingdom, the rest of Europe and Asia. The company also offers financial products, such as insurance and banking services, as well as electrical appliances and telecommunication products. For the year 2007 to date, Tesco PLC achieved revenues that totaled £ 46,611 million, an increase of 10.9% against the previous year revenues that were £42,016 million. Tesco is one of the largest food retailers in the world, operating around 2,318 stores and employing over 326,000 people.

In the first place I will begin with concise presentation of the firm I am expounding on. Tesco PLC is a international global general merchandise and grocery stock retailer whose headquater is situated in Cheshunt Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. Tesco offers an extensive variety

Tesco is a public limited company and it’s one of the largest retailer in UK and is the fourth largest retailer in the world. They have over 500,000 colleagues and they provide goods and services to 12 other countries like South Korea and Poland. Tesco is an international business but UK is where its business is more focused on. 75% of Tesco group revenue comes from UK business as they get lower sales from other countries outside UK. By offering the customer new goods and services in expanding UK markets, such as telecom and financial services and expanding their market abroad, enabled Tesco to expand their business so that it can deliver long term growth for the business. It also allowed Tesco to expand into new markets and improve their business in the competitive markets. On the other hand, Tesco main value is to provide good quality of goods and services that are cheap and affordable to the public. Which link to their slogan “every little helps.”

Tesco is an international grocery and a general merchandising retailer in the United Kingdom. It’s the third largest retailer in the world and the second largest by profits. There are Tesco stores in fourteen countries in North America, Asia and Europe. Tesco are also known for being the grocery market leader in United Kingdom

Tesco replied to these changes by introducing promotion offers which lowered prices and implemented a consumer price reduction on fuel purchases based on the amount spent on groceries at its stores (Mintel Report (2004) Food Retailing November 2004). Tesco were fined £300,000 in August 2013 for misleading consumers on a half price promotion on strawberries. Tesco admitted breaking the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations Act 2008 as in the summer of 2011 Tesco sold 400p punnets of British strawberries marked as half price at £1.99, with previous prices of £2.99 and £3.99 crossed out, in an offer that ran for 14 weeks. However, the original £3.99 was available for a shorter period of time (“Tesco Blunder Leads to £300K Fine - http://news.sky.com).

Business ethics refers to the consideration of moral decisions and responsibilities in the process of operating a business. Business ethics, practiced throughout the deepest layers of a company, become the heart and soul of the company 's culture and can mean the difference between success and failure. Values drive behavior and therefore need to be consciously stated, but they also need to be affirmed by actions. Ethical business environments are created with foundations of integrity, accountability and commitment.

Tesco plc is a global grocery and general merchandising retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. Tesco is the fourth-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues, after Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Metro. The second-largest measured by profits after Wal-Mart. It has stores in 14 countries across Asia, Europe and North America and is the grocery market leader in the UK (where it has a market share of around 30%), Malaysia and Thailand.

Tesco is the leading food retailer in Britain, they have also focused on building non-food sales which are available in store and online. Tesco is one of the world’s largest retailers with approximately 4,331 stores in 14 countries which include Asia, Europe and the United States. (Tesco, 2011). See appendix 1 for a map of the countries Tesco operate in.

Tesco is the largest supermarket retail chain in the United Kingdom with Sainsbury being their closest rival. It is also the third largest retail chain in the world. In the beginning Tesco started off by selling basic groceries before diversifying into many different markets. In 2007 Tesco was operating in the following fields:

Tesco is one of Britain’s leading food retailers and has 586 stores. From 1992, Tesco has grown greatly and has increased its market share from 10.4% to 15.2%. This increase in customers has also given Tesco a large amount of profit.

TESCO is top leading retailer in UK. It manages over a thousand supermarkets, hypermarkets, and convenience store in the United Kingdom, Ireland, central Europe, and Asia. TESCO started life in 1919 when Jack Cohen started surplus groceries from a stall in the East end of London. MR Cohen made profit of 1 from sales of 4 on his first day. TESCO brand first appear five years after in 1942 when he bought shipment of tea from a MR T. E Stockwell. From that time TESCO slowly improve in retail business and now they are take top position in UK retail business. Tesco aim is provide best products for their customer and make sure about customer requirements.

Since acquiring number one ranking in 1996, Tesco has developed a successful multiformat strategy that has accelerated its advantage. Its UK sales are now 71% larger than Sainsbury’s. Also the Competition Commission’s report makes it very difficult for a competitor to challenge its scale and has effectively scuppered Wal-Mart’s chances of stealing UK leadership. Therefore, Tesco is in an enormously strong position in its domestic market.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) conducted DNA tests and found that Tesco’s burgers declared as pure beef contained 29% of horse meat. This led to a national scandal. A public apology to its customers was not enough to save its brand image and as a consequence Tesco lost a grand total of £300 million of its market value. Tesco was not the only company affected by this scandal; however it was the most affected one. The following April, Tesco reported its first fall in annual profits since 1994. The NPAT fell by almost 96% to £120 million as compared to the year before. As a result, Tesco was forced to reduce investments in their American brand “Fresh & Easy” which cost the company another £1.2 million and it abandoned the plan to open 100 major new stores, which led to a reduction of the book value of Tesco’s assets by £804 million (a so called property write-down). In 2014, Tesco was fined £300,000 for a misleading promotional campaign in which it had claimed to sell strawberries at half-price. The consumer protection law states that half-priced sales cannot last more than the time the original higher-price sales were. Tesco had sold 400g baskets of strawberries for 7 days at higher price and then sold them as half price for 14 weeks. Costumers felt even more misled by Tesco and lost