Why struggling Tesco needs to repeat its Jubilee moment Clarke, said the company would need to spend millions fixing "long-standing business issues." It appeared that, despite his protestations that he was praising Sir Terry, he had come to bury him. Along with the company share price, which slumped 16pc, wiping nearly £5bn off the shares. The shares fell further on Friday, ending up at 315p, more than a two-year low. It seemed extraordinary that such an enormously successful company, a byword for management excellence, had somehow mismanaged this handover from Sir Terry to Clarke. But, in fact, Tesco's history is littered with a surprising number of board bust-ups, poor successions and crises over its trading. The first management succession was invariably the most painful. Sir Jack Cohen, the aggressive and charismatic market trader from the east end of London, who founded the company, had to be prised from his chairman's seat in 1969. And even then, at the age of 70, he refused to completely leave, insisting on staying on the board as life president. So autocratic had been his rule that the company was forced to bring in the management consultants McKinsey to try and sort out the lack of a proper board or management structures, that had allowed individual store managers to set their own prices. All the while Sir Jack's two sons-in-law jockeyed for position. Even after Leslie Porter emerged as the successor Sir Jack could not stop clashing with his appointed heir - quite literally. Infamously on one occasion, Porter and Sir Jack grabbed the Wilkinson swords that decorated the boardroom wall (donated by the grateful supplier) and clashed like duellists. Sir Jack raged: "One more crack like that, and I'll kill him." It was not unheard of for dinners involving directors to end up in physical brawls. By the time Sir Jack had finally retired, the shops, hundreds of which were tiny and cluttered, were in a terrible state and the image of the company was no better. It took Tesco's first ever management trainee, Ian (now Lord) MacLaurin to extricate Tesco from its slump, which coincided with a dismal consumer economy. He was the managing director and Porter's right-hand man. In a strategy called Operation Checkout, which was instigated over the Jubilee weekend of 1977, Tesco ripped up its heritage of pile-it-high-sell-it-cheap. It closed all of its stores for an extra day (in the days when shops closed on a Sunday), losing £2.5m of turnover, so it could lower the price of all of its goods and put up new signs and logos. Out went the Green Shield Stamps, with which Tesco had been synonymous for the previous 15 years. Out too went much of the razzmatazz that saw the windows cluttered with posters shouting about the giveaways. In came a smarter red and blue logo, designed by McCann Erickson, the advertising agency. Of course, part of this radical strategy was inspired by a period of terrible inflation, which soared above 20pc, and a cash-strapped consumer determined to save money amid a downturn. Many believe that a similarly radical strategy, in another Jubilee year, is needed for Tesco to regain its unassailable position. The question is whether the succession between Sir Terry and Clarke has made this more difficult. A former long-standing Tesco employee says: "When Terry Leahy was appointed it was absolutely clear he was the next leader. There was no doubt who should be in charge. This time around Phil took over as the first among equals. There was that lack of clarity who was the obvious successor, and that's made it more difficult for him. Leahy, originally a young marketing director, emerged as the clear successor after he too engineered a MacLaurin-style radical change in strategy and launched the Value range. In the depths of the recession in the early 1990s, he fought off a slippage in market share and the aggressive competition of KwikSave, Aldi and Netto. The echoes with Tesco's current problems are obvious. He then went on to launch Tesco Clubcard, a device which not only collected vast amounts of valuable data on shoppers" behaviour but also rewarded customers for their loyalty. The current big solution to harsh economic times is The Big Price Drop, unveiled by Clarke late last year. But it has failed to win over shoppers, many of whom are sceptical that prices are actually any lower, and also miss the "drug," as one analyst calls it, of the Clubcard vouchers. It has not been an easy first year for Clarke, who beat to the top job Tim Mason, head of American operations, Andrew Higginson, former finance director, and David Potts, head of Asia operations. Since his elevation to the top spot, Mason and Potts have announced their departure. Philip Dorgan, at Panmure Gordon, who has been following Tesco for 20 years said the change in succession, and the clearing out of the old guard, has exposed problems at the company. Phil Clarke has a pot of credibility. But it's diminishing somewhat. And those around him don't have the same big pots of credibility. Does he believe the new team has what it takes to win back market share? It's an act of faith. It is widely rumoured that Clarke and Richard Brasher - whom Clarke appointed to run the UK, in contrast to Sir Terry, who juggled the chief executive's job and the UK operations - do not get on. The company strongly deny this, with Clarke saying "We are absolutely resolved, determined and absolutely together." But to add to Clarke's woes in the UK he has recently lost his head of non-food. This is an important area that, Clarke admits, faces a difficult future, certainly in out-of-town hypermarkets, as shoppers embrace internet retailers. A further unwelcome distraction was the revelation on Friday that the UK chief operating officer, Noel "Bob" Robbins sold 50,000 shares the week before the profit warning. Tesco says the sale was completely above board, but questions are being asked about why Clarke signed off this transaction, which shareholder groups say looks very bad. All of this, while he tackles the fundamental problems at Tesco supermarkets, which despite taking nearly twice as much money as its nearest rival, are just not very loved by its customers. Analysts say it is dogged by poor customer service, long queues, despite Sir Terry's proud boast that he had got rid of them in 1999 with his "one-in-front" campaign, and worst of all poor quality. Jonathan Pritchard, at Oriel Securities, explains the problem: "Our view is that suppliers have been pressed to the bone to deliver increasingly better terms to Tesco, and the obvious result of that has been a lowering of the quality of the product. Furthermore, the sheer scale of Tesco has made it difficult to keep product standards high across the chain: freshness and shelf-edge display have had to be compromised. Tesco can solve this problem in two ways, both of which will have an impact on the operating margin. Possibly the most pressing problem for Tesco is its market share slippage, down from 31.2pc in 2008 to 30.5pc. Richard Hyman, retail advisor to Deloitte, says the key for all retailers this year will be gaining market share. Our economy will be flatlining at best. The consumer is significantly constrained. In order to move forward, a retailer will have to take share from their rivals.