Deploying GenAI for legacy system modernisation: Tesco’s Ramasubramanian

British grocery and general merchandise retailer Tesco has, over the past two decades in India, evolved into a major hub and significantly expanded its workforce. Started as a service centre in Bengaluru in 2004, Tesco is now an integral part of Tesco’s global technology capability. 

According to Priyadarsanie Ramasubramanian, Engineering Director – Supply Chain at Tesco, the India team has evolved from a cost arbitrage to a capability arbitrage. “Now, we have complete ownership of our technology products, from vision to execution. This transformation reflects the world-class talent and ecosystem we’ve built at Tesco Bengaluru.”

Around 60% of Tesco’s technology workforce is based in India. Ramasubramanian says that the depth of talent has enabled to the establishment of a strategic technology hub in India.The roles here range from product management, engineering, and security to infrastructure, networking, data science, and UX. 

“We all operate as one global team with equal capability. The difference lies only in where responsibilities and accountabilities sit. Our leadership is globally distributed; leaders can be based in any region, working with teams spread across geographies. For example, I serve as the Supply Chain Engineering Director from India, so a larger part of my team is based here, though I also have teams in the UK and Central Europe,” she added.

Technology as an enabler

Tesco is leveraging artificial intelligence, data analytics, and automation to enhance customer experience, streamline operations, and deliver an omnichannel journey.

“Over the past few years, data and AI have become central to how we operate. We use advanced algorithms for pricing optimisation, ensuring customers always get the best value. We have also built personalisation capabilities that help us better engage our customers,” Ramasubramanian said.

In the supply chain, Tesco is using predictive algorithms to forecast demand and optimise operations end-to-end. The retailer has also developed Intelligent Edge applications that help in collecting and processing data closer to where it is created, enabling faster decisions on the ground. Tesco has also deployed autonomous mobile robots in our warehouses to handle fresh products. These AI-powered robots use sensors to navigate freely, improving efficiency in one of our most important categories, which is fresh food.

“Beyond that, our technology teams have built and scaled the platforms that power Tesco’s entire online business. We recently launched our clothing brand F&F online, and introduced a marketplace offering where customers can shop for third-party products,” Ramasubramanian said.

The generative AI (GenAI) wave has opened up even more possibilities for Tesco. Ramasubramanian said that GenAI is being used to improve voice AI systems and chatbots to deliver smoother self-service for customers; it is also being used for automated taxonomy and product data enrichment, which refers to improving how products are classified and described online. Additionally, AI is also helping to summarise product reviews, deliver automated colleague support, and drive operational automation across teams. Some of these applications are in advanced trials, while others are already live.

“One of our most exciting GenAI use cases is in legacy system modernisation. Many large organisations, including ours, have heritage systems with complex, hard-to-decipher code. We have deployed GenAI to automatically interpret what the existing code does using prompt engineering, knowledge bases, vector databases, and agentic workflows,” noted Ramasubramanian.

Notably,  Tesco is white-labelling some of the artificial intelligence (AI) solutions developed by its Global Capability Centre (GCC) in India to sell to other non-competing enterprises. Under the business offering called ‘Transcend’, Tesco is offering certain product offerings via complete platform solutions. For instance, the company is currently working with a retailer in New Zealand to help them set up their online fulfillment platform using the Transcend solution.

Net zero by 2050

Tesco has set a goal for itself to reach net zero across its full value chain by 2050. To this end, Tesco’s engineering teams are exploring ways to reduce waste across the supply chain. While earlier efforts had focused mainly on improving availability, reducing stockholding, and minimising local waste, the company now approached supply chain optimisation more holistically.

“We are using AI, machine learning, automation, IoT, and advanced algorithms to cut emissions, decarbonise transport, and drive sustainable operations. Every year, we track and report the millions of tons of CO₂ reduced as part of our journey to net zero by 2050,” she added.