Asda’s Executive Chairman says a failed IT upgrade has had a “negative impact” on its performance.
The so-called Project Future – one of the largest and most complex IT projects undertaken by any European retailer – “severely disrupted” its systems and “materially impacted” its turnaround.
In a Q3 Trading Update the Leeds-based supermarket said that total revenue (excluding fuel) was £5.1bn, but like-for-like (LFL) sales declined by 2.8%.
“We said it would take three to five years to turn Asda around. We made good progress in the first half of the year against our ‘Formula for Growth’ with the best availability in eight years, a notable price gap versus competitors and a return to like-for-like growth,” stated Allan Leighton, Asda’s Executive Chairman.
“At Q2 results, we said that the cutover from Project Future, although completed, would likely have a negative impact on our performance. This change severely disrupted our systems and materially impacted our progress, as we saw a step-back to inconsistent availability, operational issues at depot and in-store and a poor customer experience online and through the app that impacted our Grocery Home Shopping business in particular.
READ MORE – Asda recruits AI and IoT specialists to understand the future of retail
“Since then, we have made good progress stabilising our platforms and the worst of the disruption is now behind us. Availability is back to where it was in June, operational issues are reducing and performance in recent weeks is improving, but we do not expect to re-establish our Q2 2025 position until Q2 of 2026.”
Asda said that systems were now more stable, availability is back over 95% and operational issues are reducing.
Project Future involved the separation of more than 2,500 legacy systems and moving every aspect of Asda’s operations to its own IT platforms.
However, the completion of the systems cutover disrupted operations, particularly the flow of stock between depots and stores. That led to inconsistent availability levels across stores and particularly online.
The online business was also impacted by functionality issues following the launch of a new app and website in August.
