Increasing sales by 400% in a matter of hours? We helped Tesco International do just that with a unique, low-cost approach to unlock and accelerate internal innovation or “intrapreneurialism”.

With recession and further economic uncertainty on the horizon, leaders across industries are trying to find ways to do “more with less”. More than ever, the standard approaches and best practices are constrained by resource and talent shortages. Coming out of recession ready for the next wave of growth requires bold leaders who are energised by the potential of calculated risks and motivated to drive radical change. If only it was that easy to build and sustain an environment where this form of intrapreneurial leadership can thrive.

When Tesco International wanted to experiment with this pragmatic but courageous approach, we partnered with them. Creating a fully immersive experience that equipped their senior leaders with the mindset and toolkit to drive long-term innovation, we enabled those leaders to achieve tangible benefits within days.

Focusing on intrapreneurial leadership

Tesco International wanted to equip its operationally focused leaders with the skills to implement more entrepreneurial working ways and to proactively act on new growth possibilities. They were clear that this would be most likely to succeed in the context of addressing an immediate business problem.

The problem identified was that although this multinational retailer had opened stores in Thailand, consumers were not always enticed by their ‘fresh food’ offering – preferring to shop at local wet markets – particularly for fish and seafood.

How could Tesco International win back fish and seafood sales, and thus boost overall revenue?

We put their leaders through OneLeap’s Harvard Business Review-featured Venture Sprint® process – rapidly working through the following steps:

1)  Create and validate a hypothesis
2) Ideate solutions
3) Develop and test prototypes
4) Test for scale
5) Query and quantify new value

Bold new insights from unexpected places

Within a day, by working in small groups the leadership team had successfully identified the customer pain point and gained enough customer insights to ideate possible solutions. One main idea surfaced: Could we replicate Apple’s ‘Genius Bar’ model, for fish? 

The idea was to get local experts (or ‘geniuses’) into Tesco, who could deliver real-time recipe advice and give cookery demonstrations to customers, based around a selection of curated ingredients.

Moving from ideas to actions quickly

At the prototyping stage, the team was met with some resistance from the CXO: Can we test this in-store, today? 

The initial response was reluctant: it’s expensive and perhaps we should set up a test later this month. However, with some friendly provocation and support, it was agreed that testing the idea today would be cheaper than losing that month’s sales.

‘I Cook For You’ was born, and within the 4-hours that the prototype was live, the store’s seafood sales went up by 400%. The scaled-up version of the experiment was equally successful. This validated the ‘genius bar’ model but also increased Word-of-Mouth promotion, social engagement, local PR and, most importantly, fish and seafood sales. 

External challenge, support, and learnings

At every stage of tackling this problem, Tesco leaders worked as part of a team with a specialist team of OneLeap’s entrepreneurs, experts, and facilitators. Their role was to drive thinking in new directions, turn ideas into action, and guide Tesco’s senior leaders to replicate the results in other use cases and contexts in the business. 

The project not only delivered new revenue and sales, but also created a fundamental shift in their executives’ mindsets. By participating in the process, they had a tangible understanding of the value a culture of innovation can create and became champions for entrepreneurial ways of working long after the project had concluded.

“I was searching for inspiration to stretch and challenge my CEOs and their teams and OneLeap answered the brief perfectly. Modern, agile and well-connected, I would recommend this crew to light a fire under your business plan or accelerate the development of your people.”

— CEO, TESCO INTERNATIONAL

Inspire your internal entrepreneurs and changemakers. Discover Beyond by OneLeap – a wraparound support programme for your intrapreneurs. Download the Beyond brochure here.

Adapted from OneLeap client case study: “Building a Culture of Innovation. A ‘Genius Bar’ for fish: Driving growth through entrepreneurial leadership.” 

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