Angela Maurer, Head of Tesco Labs, spoke on Innovation at Tesco at the recent CIO Summit in London. She said that they start with two sources of input – customer needs and future forces. Customer needs include those of internal departments and stores as well as shoppers. Future forces include technical, societal, fashion and demographic trends. Using insights from these two areas they brainstorm with diverse groups to generate a large number of ideas. The best ideas are selected and moved rapidly into concept development. The concepts are validated with customers. The next stage is prototyping and testing – once again with customer involvement. Tesco’s innovation team aims to go from initial idea to a minimum viable product within six weeks.
Once or twice a year they run hackathons where some 350 people work intensively in teams to develop working prototypes of ideas for business challenges. In the most recent such event 12 teams made it to the final of the competition where they demonstrated their working innovations to senior executives who could then select and resource the most promising concepts.
A third element of the Tesco Corporate Innovation programme is the support of selected external start-up companies. Tesco collaborates actively with a small number of entrepreneurs. Speed dating events are organised at which people from the start-ups spend a short time in turn with several Tesco executives from different departments. There are mutual benefits. The executives learn some key trends in say mobile technology while the entrepreneurs are given valuable advice on any topic they want from experienced managers.
Maurer said that there are four guiding principles for the whole innovation programme:
1. Does this idea address a real customer need?
2. Senior level sponsors are regularly involved.
3. Every project is ‘timeboxed’ – given deadlines.
4. Complete openness in the teams.
Tesco faces some tough competition in the retail marketplace. It has had some recent setbacks and has lost market share. The management team see innovation as a key part of their rebound.
Hello,
I am writing to talk about customer needs, future forces and the environment. I recently visited one of your stores and went to buy some spinach. I was sad to find that you have added a resealable band to the top of all the cellophane packets. I put the packet back on the shelf as I already struggle with the amount of waste generated through my weekly food shop (knowing the plastic packaging will go in the bin a few days later) and with this additional plastic I couldn’t justify the extra waste. At a time when the known consequences of single use plastic is becoming more and more mainstream, with celebrity backing and shocking images of marine life washed up on shores dead and full of plastic I find it sad to see Tesco adding more plastic to the mix. I believe it is possible to see tesco leading the way with innovative packaging ideas and implemeting them. It would then be great to see your innovation team adding the environment to their description alongside customer needs and future forces. Can you do a Hackathon to invest time into the issue. There is a growing number of consumers concerned about the impact plastic is having and it would be great to see the big players putting in the leg work to bring about change.
Kind regards,
Julia Wilson
Today I upgraded my phone and asked if Tesco had a reclamation programme for old phones. I was sorry to learn that there is no system in place to collect old phones for either salvage, or refurbishment. I believe there is a need for a responsible attitude towards the end of life for our old mobiles. Is it not true that there are some expensive metals that go into the production of mobile phones? If that is the case there must be an opening for large companies like Tesco to take the initiative and offer to take our old mobile phones to be stripped of any useful parts and maybe donate any monies made to a charity. Thank you for the opportunity to voice my suggestion.
i work at tesco mobile and i can confirm that we now do trade ins
Having visually pictured the isles of my local Tesco’s supermarket to help me write my shopping list. It got me thinking about your on line shopping. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you could virtually walk the isles, and have the shopping experience without entering the store. You could virtually select items to your basket. Beats scrolling through lists and as you do this walk through the store you could create alerts for special offers etc. Would boost your sales. Thanks Vanessa
Can Tesco’s sell all of your five a day in one package it would be a big seller