In The News

David Sables, CEO, and the Sentinel Team appear regularly on and in various media, commentating and giving insight on industry issues. David is a regular columnist within ‘the Grocer’ magazine, as well as being a contributor to Forbes.

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Adjudicator Christine Tacon is to call on thousands of suppliers to help her root out “notorious” buyers who have been systematically breaching the Groceries Code. On Monday, Tacon will start contacting an estimated 8,000 suppliers asking them to take part in a YouGov survey on their relationship with retailers and urging them to point the finger at individual buying teams. A previous survey last year was hit by poor uptake... Read More

Analysts saying the supers must ‘drop their prices’ to compete is mildly irritating. Dalton Philips proved that retailers funding price cuts with the same operation reduces profit and compounds the problem. Too much stock tied up in extended ranges means that to compete with discounters this way they’d halve their ROI - shareholders will have a problem with that. Dave Lewis gets it though: cut the range, cut the stock... Read More

Decisions over the future of thousands of lines at Tesco are being left in the hands of management consultants, suppliers warned this week. The Grocer can reveal the UK's biggest retailer has tasked Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to conduct a range review across 40 categories, with a view to reducing its SKU count by up to a third, with Tesco set to press the 'reset' button at the end of... Read More

Tesco is losing customers, its share price is down and its profits have taken a tumble. As it faces a criminal investigation over its accounting practices, Kamal Ahmed investigates what's really gone wrong inside Tesco. Watch On iPlayer Read More

Tesco’s move to scrap supplier fees and instead focus on getting the lowest prices upfront has been greeted with scepticism by leading consultants who describe is as “old-fashioned” and taking a “blunderbuss approach”. Read More Read More

The real surprise about Premier Foods’ demands for payment from suppliers is not that the company is doing it, but that it’s suddenly in the spotlight. Newsnight covered it last night. The Daily Wail shrilled: “Mr Kipling’s exceedingly murky plot to blackmail suppliers.” And Radio 4’s Today programme saw John Humphrys debate the ethics with shadow business minister Toby Perkins. But the practice is nothing new. It was first revealed... Read More

The Tesco debacle has really brought supplier treatment to the top of the agenda. Me, I've always helped suppliers learn how to deal with it in a savvy yet strategically sound way rather than grumble. If you want to play where the big rewards are then learn how to do it and don't moan if you get it wrong and get burnt. I do believe, though, that supplier treatment and... Read More

Tesco is under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office over an alleged black hole in its accounts. Simon Cox tells the story of Tesco's biggest crisis to date. Download Podcast (right click & "save target as / link as") Read More

Coverage of the Tesco scandal has oscillated between accounting misdemeanour and supplier treatment. Either way, this story is of great interest and distaste to the British public. A public whose spending loyalties the retailers compete for - and now a public with another reason to turn away from big retailers. As well as being uncompetitive, undifferentiated and financially challenged, the retailers are so mean! . The Tesco scandal is all... Read More

The suspension of Dan Jago, head of wine, and seven other directors at Tesco has left the retailer rudderless and “fighting fires” as it heads into Christmas and the busiest trading period of the year. Read More Read More