Four Perspectives Of Tesco

Strategy is a mechanism within which an organization can make sense of and understand the world surrounding it. It is a group of ideas and a pattern of actions and decisions that aim at attaining the goals and objectives of the organization and adapt its structure, resources and operations to environmental changes in the long run.

Whittington is a leader in the field of strategy, he organized strategy into four groupings: classical, evolutionary, processual and systematic. These four perspectives are described along two major dimensions: whether strategy is deliberate or emergent and whether it aims at profit maximization or seeks pluralistic outcomes.

For Whittington, difference between firms according to these perspectives can be seen from

We can see this approach workable in the early growth stages of the organization. Also it can be applicable in the unstable environments where privatization and de-regularization take place along with subsidiaries withdrawal from aiding suffering industries like steel and car industries. Tesco - for example remains in evolutionary side as their strategy is to hold their prices at low level, make advertisements and keep their choice open which can increasingly attract customers. When comparing the cost of Asda with that of Tesco, it is always shown that Tesco is very much lower and make more publicity than Asda. Another vital example is the candy industries where organizations release different flavors and let the market represented by customer choose which is

The classical approach adopted an analytical deliberate process which seems in contrary with evolutionary approach that goes through an emergent process to achieve survival that it is similar to Darwinian Theory in biology.

Both Classical and Evolutionary assume that structure must follow strategy, which is too simplistic. The message of the Classical and Evolutionary schools is clear, that is to change organizational structures to match changes in organizational strategies.

The Classical approach has been criticized for simplifying strategic decision making and separating operational practices from higher level strategy information. As a result the classical approach can lead to the over simplification of processes and to inflexibility. Evolutionary approach involves more information than that in classical approach. Its strength comes through flexibility to the changeable business environment both internally and externally although leaving the profit maximization outcome to the market looks risky since market is messy and full with confusion.