Tesco Axes Staff As It Shapes The Business to Become A Multichannel Leader'

Tesco chief executive Phil Clarke is making 50 of the firm's senior management team redundant as he pushes ahead with plans to rewire the business.

Clarke wants to put the retailers legacy behind it and inject new skills to bring the chain into the digital age. Tesco Mobile chief executive Roger Fogg and Ian Crook, marketing director at the Clubcard loyalty scheme were both considered to be in Tesco's 150 top executives and are among the casualties.

'A lot of retailers claim it, but creating individually prefect shopping experience, however a customer shops, is difficult to achieve. Becoming a multichannel leader is about more than just putting iPads into stores. It needs investment in new types of skills and not just the information technology department,' Clarke told Retail Week magazine.

'From marketing, finance and operations through to commercial and corporate affairs, the skill sets required by retail leaders are changing. That means bringing in outstanding talent with these new skills to work alongside the best of Tesco,' he said.

Former Marks & Spencer head of merchandising, Home, Paul Solly has been drafted into the Tesco's homewares business and Numis analyst Nick Coulter will join the Tesco investor relations team.

Clarke is trying to turn the business around but he is contending with legacy issues left by previous management that used the UK as a cash cow. Clarke said 18 months ago that the UK business had overheated as a result and 'taken a little bit too much away from the customer.'