Understanding Travelodge: Business Organization and Environment Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Travelodge's business organization and its external environment. It begins with an introduction to Travelodge, a UK-based hotel chain, and its vision to provide high-quality services. The main body of the report focuses on Travelodge's organizational structure, which is identified as a flatter structure, and discusses its advantages such as increased employee responsibility, better information flow, and reduced operational costs. The report then delves into a business environment analysis, utilizing both SWOT and PESTLE frameworks. The SWOT analysis highlights the company's strengths, such as affordable prices, and weaknesses, like overbooking issues. It also identifies threats, including intense competition, and opportunities, such as the adoption of sustainable practices. The PESTLE analysis examines the political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors affecting Travelodge. The conclusion summarizes the importance of evaluating business environments for organizational success, emphasizing the need for Travelodge to maintain a competitive edge through strategic decision-making and adaptation. The report is supported by various academic references.

Understanding Business
Organization

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Organizational structure...............................................................................................................3
Business environment analysis....................................................................................................4
Presenting the SWOT analysis.....................................................................................................4
Presenting PESTLE analysis.......................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Business organization is an entity that is formed for the purpose of trade and commerce.
The organization that is being selected is Travelodge. It is a private limited company
headquartered at England, UK which is operating in hotel. It is the UK's largest independent
hotel brand with numerous of hotels around UK. The vision of the company is to provide high
quality products and services to its customers and give them excellent customer experience. It is
working on its quality and enhancing its brand image through sustainable development and it
will ultimately increase its market share and enable it in expansion and growth. Company
provides variety of rooms at reasonable and it is ideal choice for low cost and leisure business
travels (Travelodge, 2022). Hotel has numerous of employees who are working together to
provide excellent services to customers and enhance customer satisfaction. The aim of project is
to evaluate business and its environment which impacts the operation of organization. It will be
including organizational structure and its benefit to company. It will also highlight about
business environment and its impact on company and its success. The internal environment of
company will be evaluated through SWOT analysis tool and macro external environment will be
assessed through PESTLE analysis tool.
MAIN BODY
Organizational structure
Organizational structure is a system that outlines the direction in which business activities
can be done in order to achieve goal and objective. The business activities include rules, roles
and responsibilities which help employees and management of entity to work effectively and
efficiently. It also enables organization to determine the direction in which information flows
between different level within company. There are different types of organizational structure that
is followed by company according to their business models and functions. The organizational
structure includes: functional, divisional, flatter and matrix structure (Andersson and et.al.,
2019). Organizational structure that is followed by Travelodge is flatter structure. This type of
structure is also known as horizontal structure where organization reduces its number of layers.
There are various advantage of flatter organizational structure to company as this structure
increases responsibility of employees because there is no middle management. This boost morale
of employees and make them motivated and committed towards organization. Higher job

satisfaction lead to increase in performance, and they will be accountable for their work towards
themselves and to their co-workers.
The flatter structure has given an advantage of dissemination of information quicker and
easier than that of other structure which helps company in taking effective decisions faster. There
will be less chance for miscommunication and passing of incorrect information as level of
management has been reduced (Torres Zapata, 2019). The ease in sharing information and
knowledge has positively impacted whole company. The elimination of middle level
management has decreased the cost of operation which can be used for expansion of business
and in other activities such as training and development programs of employees. Flatter structure
has also allowed better coordination among employees and management which has led to
effective and efficient customer service and satisfaction. This has also made employees more
responsible and developed teamwork ability as they were able to share their knowledge and
ideas.
Business environment analysis
Business environment analysis is a framework which is used by organization to study
internal and external environmental factors that may impact business and its operations. There
are various tools that are used for evaluating business environment (Gogokhia and Berulava,
2021). The internal factors include corporate culture and structure of business that may have a
vital impact on decision-making process of company. External factors are competition, location,
customers and government regulations.
Presenting the SWOT analysis
Strengths:
The major strength of the company is that it offers variety of goods at very affordable
prices that includes family rooms, double rooms and much more. Thus, this would help the
company to survive even in tough times like pandemic where people were having very low or
minimum earnings (Zima, Plebankiewicz and Wieczorek, 2020). Furthermore, this factor is good
for the company as even when company wishes to expand into various newer regions where
there is low inflation rates than it would be able to attract more number of customers in short
duration.
Weaknesses:

Travel loge is the hotel chain that is successful in making its customer satisfied over the
long period. However, the company has failed as it was not able to equip with whole range of
customers. Thus, it is very necessary to bring innovative products so that competitive advantage
could be gained (Travelodge's SWOT Analysis, 2022). Furthermore, major weakness is that
company follows the policy of overbooking where most of the customers remain unsatisfied at
the last moment impact the sales of the business and customer loyalty in negative manner
Threats:
Hospitality sector is very competitive and therefore there are large number of competitors
that are entering into the market creating negative impact on sales of the firm. Also, firm has the
serious threat of increased number of globalized activity that would force the business to
implement new services and products on timely basis to survive in various market.
Opportunities:
As new environmental protection movement is been followed in various regions and also
major focus in been put on using sustainable business practices. Thus, it can be said that this
factor would help cited firm in generating better revenues as it would help in increasing the
overall markets share in the most systematic manner
Presenting PESTLE analysis
This the type of analysis that would help the firm in analysing factors that would affect
the sales of the business in both positive and negative manner. Also, through analysis the firm
would be able to maximize the efficiencies for the future Furthermore, the detail analysis of the
PESTLE is been presented as follows:
Political: There are various factors such as political instability, tax rates ,unstable market
conditions etc. that might affect the sales and productivity of the business on large scale.
Furthermore, these factors had to be closely analysed by the stated company so that maxim
returns are gathered in the end. For instance: If there is higher inflation rate than it would create
losses for the firm if it plans to expand in such situations.
Economical: Factors like certain import export restrictions, inflation, trade and tariff
rates etc. would also affect the revenues of the business. For instance: Higher import export
restrictions would not allow the firm to buy certain goods that are needed for running the hotel
chain in the most successful manner (Vallati and Grassi, 2019).

Social: Any country has certain societal norms, beliefs, trade and customs etc. that has to
be taken into consideration so that there are no problems in working in the future. Also, in
context of travel lodge it has to take special care to ensure that all the new services and products
that are been launched are according to taste and preferences of the customers.
Technological: There are various new technologies that are coming in the market and
therefore it is very essential for travel lodge to ensure that latest digital technologies are been
used so that business is able to run in smooth manner
Legal: Factors like company laws, rules and regulation, minimum wages, working hours
etc. had to be specified by the firm so that there are no government interventions in the future.
Moreover, these rules had to be reviewed strictly by the company so that certain modifications if
required could be made on timely basis (Shtal and et.al, 2018). For instance: The cited company
had to ensure that there is the best working hours' policy established so that more candidates
might be attracted towards the company and its practices. Thus, establishing best working
policies and determining proper roles and responsibilities of each employee would help the firm
to maintain best brand image in the market.
Environmental: In the current times people are very much concern towards protecting
the environment and its resources. Also, consumers are attracted towards consuming only those
products that are more sustainable. Thus, to create the positive impact consumers would be
interested in consuming only those service in the travel lodge that are more focused on
environment and its resources.
CONCLUSION
The project had given an understanding of different business environments and
importance of evaluating them for success and growth of company. Travelodge is engaged in
hospitality industry with high level of competition and to remain competitive company is
required to gain competitive advantage. Company is required to closely assess its external
environment and changes that are taking place to identify the opportunities and threats and link
the same with strengths and weaknesses of company for making appropriate decisions. The
flatter organizational structure followed by company has made it easier for company to
communicate information and share knowledge which enables it in taking fast and appropriate
decision for welfare of business and in expansion. The SWOT analysis tool was used to evaluate
internal environment of company which had given an understanding of strengths and weaknesses

of company and area where company requires improvement (Benzaghta and et.al., 2021).
Analysing external environment is also very important for company to know changes taking
place in environment which can help in taking corrective measures and decisions. The external
environment of Travelodge had been highlighted in the project using PESTLE analysis tool.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Andersson, T. and et.al., 2019. Building traits for organizational resilience through balancing
organizational structures. Scandinavian Journal of Management. 35(1). pp.36-45.
Benzaghta, M. A. and et.al., 2021. SWOT analysis applications: An integrative literature review.
Journal of Global Business Insights. 6(1). pp.55-73.
Gogokhia, T. and Berulava, G., 2021. Business environment reforms, innovation and firm
productivity in transition economies. Eurasian Business Review. 11(2). pp.221-245.
Shtal, T. V. and et.al, 2018. Methods of analysis of the external environment of business
activities. Revista espacios. 39(12).
Torres Zapata, I., 2019. University Research Centres: Organizational Structures and
Performance. Journal of technology management & innovation. 14(3). pp.23-43.
Vallati, M. and Grassi, A., 2019, July. AI to Facilitate Legal Analysis in the PESTLE Context.
In Proc. Emerging Technology Conference (EMiT) (pp. 66-68).
Zima, K., Plebankiewicz, E. and Wieczorek, D., 2020. A SWOT analysis of the use of BIM
technology in the polish construction industry. Buildings. 10(1). p.16.
Online
Travelodge, 2022. [Online]. Available through: <https://www.zoominfo.com/c/travelodge-
hotels-limited/38797747>
Travelodge's SWOT Analysis. 2022. [Online]. Available through:
<https://toughnickel.com/industries/Travelodge-Comprehensive-Business-Analysis-and-
International-Expansion-Plan>