It’s no secret that Asda have suffered from difficult sales performance in recent years – though recently results have improved. Those of us of a certain age, though, remember the Asda of ten to fifteen years ago, delivering stellar sales performance, and creating pressure on the rest of the market, not unlike the pressure that the Discounters are creating today.

So what can we learn from Asda past and present?

The big theme of Asda at their best is customer focus. Having a deep understanding of their core customers, their needs and aspirations. Then acting decisively on that.

In the glory years, Asda offered a combination of decent food, industry leading non-food and low pricing, that became very hard to compete with. The epicentre was George clothing – great product, great prices and a challenger mindset that resulted in UK market leadership on volume.

What about now? How do we see this customer focus playing out across the current Asda offer?

There are good examples in Fresh Food. In Prepared Vegetables, Asda offer good quality, family sized portions at an affordable price. In Prepared Meat, there’s a smart looking range of Ready to Cook products for two – not dissimilar to what you’ll find elsewhere . But Asda add an authoritative selection of flavoured ”Roast in the Bag” whole chicken and family sized packs of marinated chicken portions.   Asda are taking market themes (the trend towards prepared products, the move towards flavoured meats) but adapting for their specific customer (more mouths to feed, an eye on budget). It’s the Asda angle for the Asda customer.

You can sense the same customer focus in the Christmas offer this year. George is dominated by light hearted Christmas clothing. There is a huge gifting range, with clear round pound pricing and a 3 for 2 promotion. And plenty of sharp offers at front of store, including confectionery tins at £4. A good shop to stock up for a family Xmas.

So why the generally sluggish performance? There are lots of explanations – and none of the Big 4 are finding growth easy to find – but one area I’d be thinking about is overload. There is a huge amount clamouring for attention in Asda right now. Side stacks and display units proliferate. There is so much going on, that the shopper can’t be expected to register it all. The danger is that customers miss some of the good stuff. One of the attractions of Aldi and Lidl is their simple, edited range. One of their strengths is the clarity of their messaging. Maybe Asda can learn something there – less is often more.

So customer focus – knowing their customer and delivering against their customer’s needs – has been key to Asda’s success in the long term. Staying true to that focus, whilst simplifying the offer and messaging, is their best bet as they seek turnaround in performance.