The Three Successful Transformers: Breakthroughs

Abstract

In the early 1990s business commentators were still casting doubts on the prospects of our three transformers. Thus, in the same period from 1992 to 1994, the Financial Times could describe all three as “stuck in the middle” strategically. Cadbury Schweppes was neither a national nor a convincingly international player. Tesco was not a leading discounter, but nor could it be called a high-profile quality provider. And Smith & Nephew’s pretensions as a supplier of global, high-margin medical devices was undercut by a hard-to-shift image of a slow-moving peddler of bandages and creams.