4.09.2014

Gem of the day

Suppliers are a key part of the 'Essentials' of Tesco's evolving CR strategy. A critical and complicated area to improve, you'd expect a sophisticated set of goals to drive progress - especially to fulfill the statement 'Tesco treats its suppliers fairly'. Instead, this is Tesco's key target:

"We know that we need to improve our reputation for how we treat our suppliers, so we will ask our customers – in all markets in which we operate – whether they agree with this statement or not. This will be done through our regular image tracker survey which tracks customers’ views on our performance."

Things that are wrong with this picture: a) focusing on reputation, and b) targeting customers, who have little influence or expertise to bring to how Tesco's supplier relationships evolve.