COVID-19 Impact: A Case Study of Honest Burgers' Strategic Challenges

This report analyzes the strategic challenges faced by Honest Burgers during the COVID-19 pandemic. It highlights the pandemic's impact on organizational performance, using PESTLE analysis to identify external market factors and SWOT analysis to assess internal strengths and weaknesses. The report explores solutions for overcoming these challenges, evaluating strategies to enhance organizational performance and competitiveness. Key findings summarize the pandemic's impact on the hospitality industry, including decreased sales, customer reduction, and changing market conditions. The research also discusses motivations for conducting the study and the evaluation process used. Ultimately, the report aims to provide insights and recommendations for Honest Burgers to navigate the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and achieve sustainable growth.

INTEGRATED CASE STUDY

Content
• Summary of Research
• Steps Taken
• Strength and Weakness of research
• Originality of thesis
• Findings relate to literature work
• Summarising Key Findings
• Major motivations behind research
• Process of evaluation
• Key focus of this research
• Summary

Summary of Research
This report is mainly focusing on the strategic challenges that were faced by Honest Burgers during the COVID-
19 pandemic. Honest Burgers is a chain of fast food restaurants that is based in Wales, England and was
established in the year 2011. The report has mainly focused on highlighting how the COVID-19 pandemic has
influenced the activities of organisation and led to the declining in the levels of organisational performance.
Moreover, this report describes various challenges with the help of PESTLE analysis for identifying various
external market factors that influence the organisation and its activities. Along with this, the report has provided
a SWOT analysis of the organisation for identifying its internal strengths and weaknesses along with the
external opportunities and threats for overcoming various challenges.

Steps Taken
The most important thing is to start a course-work assignment is to and start early. If there is enough time to
plan, research, write and revise the assignment work then it should be properly planned. The main stages of this
document consisted of the operation, research and writing.

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Understanding the assignment task: Before the
assignment was started it was made sure that the
assignment task or questions are analyzed and what
needs to be done. This helped to focus on the research .
Planning how to answer assignment tasks or questions
was helpful to focus and make writing assignment
easier. This also helped to derive a structure to follow,
and it was made sure that the answer to assignment
tasks are given correctly.

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Planned research of the topic and relevant and reliable
information was obtained from course materials and
recommended readings, along with the open
polytechnic library, online sources, and talking to
experts.
Reading and taking notes helped draft following plan to
research. Fill in the gaps, writing main points for each
section through notes helped a lot. Writing freely
helped me to understand better about the preparation of
the project.

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I wrote the assignment through continuous
understanding of my work and has identified the
assignment details that could be entitled to complete it
effectively and efficiently.
Editing and Proof-read: Finally I edited and
proofreader the content written and evaluated the
mistakes so that work can be modified and assessment
can be of complete optima that provides best results.
The mistakes were then edited and final checking was
performed.

Strength and Weakness of research
Strengths Weaknesses
Descriptive research can provide an in-depth view of
any topic we might want to study, and the level of
detail that we can find in descriptive research is
extremely valuable. This is particularly true of
descriptive research that is collected qualitatively. In
this form of research, we may find information that we
never even knew to look for!
We cannot determine a cause and effect relationship
from descriptive research. For example, if a student
talks about engaging with a particular learning strategy,
and then provides an in-depth account of why they
think it helped them learn, we cannot conclude that this
strategy actually did help the student learn. We also
have to be very careful of reactivity in this type of
research.

Originality of thesis
Originality is one of the most important criteria for a successful thesis. Your thesis should be a significant
addition to the accumulated knowledge within your discipline, which implies it must offer something new.
• generate new data

Originality of thesis
• apply new methods to existing data

Originality of thesis
• create new interpretations of existing data

Originality of thesis
• support for
existing theories,
models or
interpretations

Originality of thesis
• modify existing theories, models or interpretations

Originality of thesis
• critique existing
theories, models or
interpretations

Findings relate to literature work
I have used many references like, Bermes, A., 2021 in context to the solutions that can be adopted by the
organisation during covid-19 pandemic because it provides the perspective for exploring and mitigating the
problems of customers during covid-19 pandemic. I have used Burhan, M., and et. al., 2021 for exploring the
various solutions and strategies for an organisation in the hospitality sector because it helps to identify the crisis
management in the hospitality sector. I have used Costa, L. B. M., and et. al., 2018 reference in terms of
identifying the changing operations in the food industry in the hospitality sector for the given organisation. I
have used Erginel, N. and et. al., 2018 in terms of identifying the strategies of overcoming the situation of
pandemic during covid-19 and this reference is helpful to identify the critical solutions with the help of Sigma.

Summarising Key Findings
It has been summarised from the report that the hospitality industry has witnessed many ups and downs during
the COVID-19 pandemic situation across the UK. It has been obtained that the occurrence of COVID-19
pandemic has led to devastating effects and has brought various issues and challenges for the organisations in
the hotel industry. It has affected the overall performance and productivity of the organisation by reducing the
number of customers, change in technology, changing external environment conditions within the market.
Moreover, it has been discussed that the hospitality industry has witnessed various issues such as lowering down
of sales and profits, reduction in the number of customers, declining growth rate, lock-downs etc. that have
stubbed the hospitality businesses to death. Furthermore, it has been identifying various challenges with the help
of PESTLE analysis that describe the external market conditions that have affected the hotel business activities
in the external market.

Major motivations behind research
The possible motives for doing research includes the following:
• Desire to get a research degree along with its consequential benefits;
• Desire to face the challenge in solving the unsolved problems, i.e., concern over practical problems initiates
research;
• Desire to get intellectual joy of doing some creative work;
• Desire to be of service to society;
• Desire to get respectability.

Process of evaluation
The process of evaluation research consisting of data analysis and reporting is a rigorous, systematic process
that involves collecting data about organizations, processes, projects, services, and/or resources. Evaluation
research enhances knowledge and decision-making, and leads to practical applications.

Key Focus of this Research
• The main focus of the hospitality industry is towards their customers, which derives their intensity and
professionalism for providing genuine customer services for enhancing their experience. Six Sigma strategies
refer to a framework that uses tools and terminologies for identifying the reasons for deviations of the
performance and process within the organisation. With the use of the latest technology the efforts of the
organisation towards the understanding of trends in the market can be improved.
• With the help and adoption of this strategy the company can also enhance their marketing, sales and
promotion activities of the organisation. It will help to gain larger market coverage by investing fewer
amounts of finance and working together for improving the overall performance of the organisation. The
company can also use this strategy for using resources and creating a skilled and talented workforce to use
resources in optimum manners without wasting them. This has to eliminate error and reduce the wastage of
the products and services.

Summary
This report is mainly focusing on the strategic challenges that were faced by Honest Burgers during the COVID-
19 pandemic. Honest Burgers is a chain of fast food restaurants that is based in Wales, England and was
established in the year 2011. The report has mainly focused on highlighting how the COVID-19 pandemic has
influenced the activities of organisation and led to the declining in the levels of organisational performance.
Moreover, this report describes various challenges with the help of PESTLE analysis for identifying various
external market factors that influence the organisation and its activities. Along with this, the report has provided
a SWOT analysis of the organisation for identifying its internal strengths and weaknesses along with the
external opportunities and threats for overcoming various challenges. Furthermore, this report as critically
assigns various solutions that could be helpful for the organisation to gain a higher level of performance and
sustainability within the market. In this context it has evaluated various strategies and solutions that can be
helpful for Honest Burgers to achieve a high level of organisational performance and gain competitiveness.

Questions?

Thank you