FROM Genghis Khan to Napoleon, history is littered with empire builders who could have learnt a thing or two from Tesco, had the supermarket been around in their day.
There was never any need to raise a marauding army to conquer the world when all you need do is start a grocery chain.
Tesco’s influence extends into so many parts of our lives that Britain is in danger of having to be renamed Tescoland.
I recall the time, perhaps 40 years ago, when Tesco in Allerton Road was no more than a corner shop. The building it occupied then is now a Chinese restaurant. Of course the building it occupies today, just a few hundred yards away, would cover a football pitch, and possibly a bit more besides.
Tesco has muscled in on numerous market places and nowadays sells financial services, clothes, electricals and many other goods and services.
It’s a money-making machine that earns a fortune for its investors and directors. Sir Terry Leahy, due to retire next year, will be able to live off a very comfortable pension income and many millions in savings.
And now the company goes from strength to strength in other parts of the world.
Whether it’s New York or Prague, you bump into the Tesco name wherever you turn.
Like all other big supermarket groups, it uses global market forces to its advantage. Whether it’s charging consumers more or paying growers less, the supermarkets always seem to cut the best deal for themselves.
Their advertising and marketing techniques can induce us to buy stuff we didn’t previously know we needed. Military dictators are meant to specialise in getting the trains running on time, but Tesco’s just-in- time logistics schedules are probably even more reliable.
Not even the recession dented the chain’s progress, as yesterday’s interim results show.
Then there is data collection. Tesco possibly knows more about us than the state. Sir Terry’s cohorts know what we eat for breakfast and tea, how often we have sex and what ailments we suffer from.
Most of us feel compelled to shop at Tesco, despite not approving of the group’s dominance of the high street and the way it has killed off many independent shops and made food less characterful and varied.
Nor is there any sign that the company’s growth is abating. Imagine what Tesco’s influence might be when it wins twice the market share it has now.
SPORTECH has had its difficulties over the years.
In fact, at one stage, the football pools firm looked as if it was facing oblivion, burdened by heavy debts and losing millions of pounds a year. The costly deal to supply interactive gambling services to ITV Digital being an example of how big ambitions can go wrong.
Now its latest deal to acquire a major betting service in the US puts the Walton group back on the front foot.
It has raised £51m to buy Scientific Games Racing.
The completion of the deal represents a remarkable transformation in the group’s prospects. Far from facing uncertainties, it now appears to have a solid base for future growth.
The deal means it will handle £8bn of bets a year.
Nor do Sportech’s ambitions end there. It is talking about buying the Tote, the state-owned trackside betting service that also operates 500 betting shops.
It’s refreshing to hear such optimism after the tough two years we have all been through.
