Inside Tesco’s Engineering Blueprint For Global Omnichannel Retail

As global retailers push toward seamless store-to-digital convergence, the complexity no longer lies in building apps or deploying APIs; it lies in making every customer interaction consistent, fair, resilient, and compliant at a massive scale. For Tesco, one of the largest global retailers, this transformation is being quietly engineered from Bengaluru.

At the centre of this effort is Karthikeyan S Sengottuvelusamy, Engineering Director, Channels, Tesco Technology, who leads omnichannel engineering across checkout systems, real-time APIs, next-generation till hardware, and AI-driven pricing platforms. His remit spans physical stores and digital channels alike, ensuring that customer journeys behave consistently whether they begin at a checkout counter or a mobile screen.

In an interaction with CiOL, Sengottuvelusamy outlines how Tesco is rethinking engineering ownership, balancing AI-led pricing with fairness, designing for failure at scale, and navigating privacy, regulation, and security risks in global retail systems.

During the conversation, Sengottuvelusamy emphasised that Tesco’s omnichannel strategy is less about technology adoption and more about organisational design, governance, and execution discipline. He highlighted how India-based engineering teams contribute directly to global retail operations by building core checkout APIs, pricing systems, and edge platforms that operate across thousands of stores.

He also addressed the realities of deploying AI in pricing, the architectural challenges of real-time systems across physical and digital environments, and the growing importance of cybersecurity and software supply chain resilience as retail platforms scale.

Interview Excerpts

You lead omnichannel engineering from Bengaluru. What engineering practices or structures have driven measurable global impact for Tesco?

The most significant impact comes from empowering teams around clear outcomes and shared guiding principles. This shift fosters a cultural transformation, one that accelerates innovation, reduces cycle times, and enables teams to operate with greater autonomy and accountability. By anchoring these principles in measurable goals such as improved DORA metrics, core business KPIs, and experimentation at scale, organisations create the conditions for sustained, high-velocity delivery and continuous improvement.

AI-driven pricing systems are gaining traction across retail. How do you balance dynamic pricing with fairness and trust?

We leverage a combination of machine learning models and proven heuristics, underpinned by strong governance and responsible AI guardrails. These include built-in constraints to ensure customer and supplier fairness, a human-in-the-loop approach for review and approval, and real-time feedback loops that continuously monitor performance and outcomes. Together, these measures ensure decisions are both scalable and trustworthy while maintaining transparency and accountability.

Real-time APIs and edge systems are central to omnichannel parity. What are the toughest technical challenges at this scale?

We design our architecture with an omnichannel-first mindset, ensuring that core APIs support online and in-store journeys with equal fidelity. For example, actions such as adding an item to a basket are engineered to perform consistently fast across digital and physical channels, despite differences in underlying compute and storage environments. This approach delivers a seamless customer experience while maintaining architectural resilience and scalability across the ecosystem.

Personalisation often clashes with privacy and regulation. How does Tesco manage that balance across markets?

We operate in full compliance with GDPR and all relevant regulatory requirements, collecting only the data necessary to serve our customers effectively. By placing customer trust, happiness, and delight at the centre of our data practices while rigorously adhering to regulatory norms, we have found that strong compliance and exceptional customer experiences are not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing.

Looking ahead, what risks could derail omnichannel innovation in global retail?

Software supply chain threats and cyberattacks represent some of the most significant risks facing modern enterprises. Addressing these risks requires a layered defence-in-depth security model, coupled with a culture where every employee takes ownership of being the strongest link in the security chain. We have seen firsthand how seemingly simple attack vectors, when left unaddressed, can be exploited by bad actors to disrupt even the largest retailers—reinforcing the importance of vigilance, resilience, and continuous improvement in cybersecurity.