From: "Dave Ings" 

Since Phil mentioned it recently ...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061005.IBMORTISHED05/TPStory
/Columnists
LONDON -- It's big, it's brash, it's British and it's taking on Bill Gates.
Tesco, Britain's biggest retailer, is moving into the software market,
stacking piles of cheap own-branded office software alongside the baked
beans and kid's clothes in its U.K. stores.

It is yet another arm for the retail octopus run by Sir Terry Leahy, who is
determined to stretch the concept of supermarket as far from groceries as a
good retail margin will permit. Tesco is Britain's grocery behemoth with a
third of the U.K. market under its belt and annual profit of more than
œ2-billion ($4.25-billion). With determination that borders on aggression,
Tesco has moved into almost every retail category on the high street, from
cosmetics to contact lenses and fridges to furniture.

Loved and loathed in equal measure, Tesco captures one out of every eight
retail pounds collected in U.K. tills. The darling of consumer lobby
groups, it is a fearsome discounter that shatters the premium price
delusions of designers, perfumers and luxury goods manufacturers. If Tesco
is a consumer champion, it is also a bully, an insatiable margin monster
that demands from suppliers its pound of flesh and an extra ounce for
dessert. Farmers live in fear of its shadow spreading across their fields,
small-town shopkeepers organize vigilante protests at the first hint of a
Tesco store development.

Tesco is on the move. Not content with being No. 1 in a nation of
shopkeepers, Sir Terry is opening stores in 12 countries. Already the
leader in Thailand, it has more than 100 outlets in Japan and 31 stores in
China. Tesco is fighting Carrefour for the rich pickings in emerging Asian
markets but surely Tesco could never challenge a Wal-Mart?

Think again. Only a year ago, Lee Scott, Wal-Mart's chief executive
officer, called for an antitrust enquiry into Tesco's dominance in the U.K.
grocery market. They're so big, complained the little shopkeeper from
Bentonville, Ark., that it's getting hard to compete. Wal-Mart's local U.K.
brand, Asda, is the second-biggest player in the grocery market but it
boasts only half Tesco's market share.
If Lee Scott is grumbling, it may be that he senses a dangerous incursion.
Tesco is about to dip its toe in the U.S. market, investing œ250-million a
year to build a chain of convenience stores on the West Coast. Faced with
Wal-Mart's vast U.S. floor space, Tesco's investment is no more than a flea
bite, but Tesco fleas have a nasty habit of infestation.

In the 1970s, Tesco was a dirty discounter, a pile 'em high merchant where
no self-respecting middle-class Mum would push a trolley. Transformation
came in the 1980s with Ian McLaurin, a no-nonsense Scottish disciplinarian

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5