Tesco's IT work to support development of a full
retail bank will be a priority for the company in the coming
year.
The company made the disclosure as its
financial
results show its sales now topping £1bn a week.
Tesco today reported its highest ever profits, with a 12.4% rise
in group trading profit to £3.09bn. Group sales grew 15.1% to
£59.4bn.
Tesco plans to create 11,000 new jobs in the UK, with a
particular emphasis on its expansion of Tesco Personal Finance
(TPF).
The supermarket bought a 50% shareholding in TPF from the Royal
Bank of Scotland last July, and set a target to grow profits from
£400m in 2007/08 to £1bn in the next few years.
The company says in its financial results, "The business is
profitable and well-capitalised, which is a strong platform from
which to pursue our plans to develop TPF from a successful, popular
collection of financial products to a full-service retail bank in
the years ahead."
The TPF team, a mixture of Tesco managers and staff from the
banking industry, is currently migrating systems and customer
support over to Tesco's own platforms. Work is also being done on
the development of a branch network in Tesco stores, and the
development of new products.
IT is also important to Tesco's "Step Change" program, which,
the company says, "brings together many initiatives to make what we
do better for customers, simpler for staff and cheaper for
Tesco."
As part of this, 3,100 employees in India now provide IT support
to the company's UK and international operations.
New checkout technology is also part of the program. Around 25%
of UK customer transactions are through self-service checkouts,
which the company says has reduced costs and made the process
easier for staff. The Step Change Program as a whole saved Tesco
£540m in a year.
The results also reported a successful year for the company's
website. Its online businesses saw a 20% increase in sales to
£1.9bn, with profits at £109m.
Catalogue service Tesco Direct, managed within Tesco.com, makes
non-food products available via the internet. The company reported
"excellent sales growth" and said clothes would be next to be
offered online, later this year.