Whitbread's Business Strategies to Counter Climate Change Research

This report presents a research project analyzing Whitbread's business strategies in response to climate change. It examines the company's eco-friendly initiatives, including the Costa Eco-Pod and Premier Inn's sustainable practices, such as water and energy reduction. The research aims to understand Whitbread's unique selling proposition, its impact on investors and consumers, and the role of its sustainability strategies. The methodology includes both primary (surveys, interviews) and secondary data collection. The report investigates the impact of these strategies on stakeholders and proposes recommendations for further development. The report also explores the role of Whitbread's business strategies in the context of climate change and the hospitality industry, considering investor confidence and consumer perception. The project's implementation plan, research questions, and potential significance are also detailed.

Running Head: MANAGEMENT RESEARCH
Management Research on Whitbread’s Business Strategies to Counter Climate Change

MANAGEMENT RESEARCH
Table of Contents
TASK 1......................................................................................................................................3
Introduction............................................................................................................................3
Background............................................................................................................................3
Aims.......................................................................................................................................4
Methodologies........................................................................................................................5
Plan of Implementation..........................................................................................................6
Conclusion..............................................................................................................................6
TASK 2......................................................................................................................................8
Implementing the research project within the specification and procedure...........................8
Data Collection.......................................................................................................................9
Evaluating the Research Outcome.......................................................................................10
Recommendations................................................................................................................11
TASK 3....................................................................................................................................13
References................................................................................................................................19
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TASK 1
Introduction
The report would analyse the business management systems undertaken by a firm and
conduct a research based on the findings. The business selected for the study is Whitbread,
the real estate and hospitality business of UK. The report would formulate the specifications
used for the research conducted for the study. In the case of research, the topic which would
be given most stress upon would be the ecological construction that the brand Whitbread has
been able to develop an attraction for ("Annual Report," 2016). This ecological style or
process of running the construction and hospitality business would be given an inward look.
This is in the light of the investor attraction that the brand did achieve in its strategies of
work.
Background
The Hospitality brand of UK, Whitbread is tackling the changing climate of the globe
with an efficient technology. This is to make the buildings eco-friendly and dedicated to
making suitable changes to tackle climate change issues, within the business. This objective
of the business can also be suggested as its strategy to develop its core Unique Selling
Proposition (USP) to the target clients. The benefits of the strategy have greatly affected the
finance of the brand.
The Brand of Whitbread has registered itself as a pioneer attracting investors towards
it. The Costa Eco-Pod, development of the Hob Hotel of the Premier Inn group, were to
suggest its reach and appeal. The brand increases its innovative application of the eco-
friendly designs and models. The Premier Inn has achieved a 40% decrease in its water usage
along with a reduction of energy usage by 30%. The site also supports the renewable energy
generation projects ("History of Whitbread," 2015). The neutral energy consumption
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innovations are unique and one of its kind. They are capable of generating all the energy they
consume via renewable source what they consume. The innovative application of eco-
friendly processes is what the brand wish to percolate in all its current and future ventures
(Hult, 2014).
The Brand Loyalty and consumer experience along with the changing social outlook
towards ‘green' operations to deliver a sustainable future for the operations in the business.
The attractively to the investors and stakeholders at all levels makes the business attractive,
for a long term sustenance and profits. Thus this is an investor confidence builder as well as
an innovation-driven operation. Internationally they have gained the national fame for being
the second largest coffee sellers. The brand is old and has grown over the years with many
acquisitions. The future of the brand is dependent on the innovation they apply in their
operations to make the brand attractive to both consumer and investors (Matobobo &
Osunmakinde, 2016).
Rational
The main reason behind conducting this research is to determine various strategies in
order to climate changes. There different business activities are included that are creating
direct impact on the environment. Some4 of them are like release of harmful gases and waste
into water bodies. These all activities are playing significant role in disturbing atmosphere
and causing issues like climate changes.
Aims
To analyse the role of business strategies to counter climate change. A study on Whitbread.
The Aims of the research is to find the USP of the business and thus the consumer’s
perception towards the business. This in other terms the credibility of the business is such that
it is the second largest Coffee shop brand internationally. The other business aspires to be
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unique as the success of the Whitbread grows (Mazur, 2013). However, the unique
competence that this brand has strategically achieved is the background for the research. The
business has achieved its success in the London Stock Exchange and had an employee over
50,000 employees for the business operations (Lee, Ahn, Park, & Park, 2016). The brands
attractively are being researched in this project. The aims of the research are as follows:
1. To analyse the eco-friendly operational structure of Whitbread.
2. To access the sustainability strategies followed by Whitbread
3. To analyse the impact of strategies among stockholders and consumers of Whitbread.
Research Questions
1. What are the eco-friendly operational structure of Whitbread.
2. What are the sustainability strategies followed by Whitbread.
3. What are the impact of strategies among stockholders and consumers of Whitbread.
Potential Significance
The significance of considering this research it helps in determining the factors that
are creating negative factors on environment. On the basis of necessary strategies are adopted
such as renewable resources, recycling and implementation of natural energy sources. The
research would give a brief of the aims above identified for the research. The interest of the
stakeholders about the business and its future would be the key aim of the study.
Methodologies
Research approach
The research would apply the post-modern approach of fact finding.
Data collection
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The tools of the research would be entirely based on the primary as well as secondary
data collection and assessment. The secondary data are those who are already published in
the provisos studies and news or similar sources. The secondary data would be gathered to
analyse the attractively of the investor attraction potential in among the potential investors.
Further, the consumer’s perspectives would be studied as well, from those sources. The
primary data is collected from the people with qualitative and quantitative questions to build
the response data findings.
Research analysis
The qualitative analysis would be done where there would be 100 participants in the
survey which would include a mix of consumers as well investors of the Whitbread brand.
The social media would be used to reach the vast community of consumers and investors of
the brand. The primary data would have a questioner of 10 different questions to understand
their response to the brand perception. The range of Good to worse like hierarchy would be
suggested as the answer where there would be one answer for each questions forming the
group response, statistically. The results drawn in from the answers would give a graphical
analysis of the responses. This is the best way to derive the intent of the audience with
graphical representations.
The quantitative interviews are but formal interviews conducted based on the research
objective questions. Nevertheless, the qualitative and quantitative both formulates the
primary data for the research. The qualitative answers would be asked to a smaller set of
people, 10 in this case which too would have a mix of consumers and investors for the brand.
The answers they give would be the elaborative type from which various points may emerge.
The Social media site for both qualitative and quantitative would be used to reach the
business consumers along with the investors to seek their response to the strategies
undertaken by the brand.
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Plan of Implementation
The qualitative questions would be 5 to 6 in number which shall be asked in an
informal setup so that the answers don’t have any prejudice or bias. Again, the interviewee
would be given ample time to respond and bring out issues that they find important. This
would enlarge the research findings and may also bring out new solutions or problems
affront. The random selection would be used to bring in the participants so that the process
stays unbiased. The qualitative and quantitative interviews would be conducted on the willing
persons only who are either consumer or stakeholders of Whitbread.
The questioners would be distributed in among 150 people out of whom 100 random
answers would be chosen to formulate the findings. This is primary data while the secondary
data collections would be done from the published literature. The people of the social media
sites who are aware of the new developments in the strategic direction of Whitbread’s
business are the target audience. A pan-UK perspective from various businesses of the brand
and impact that this eco-friendly strategy is best suitable for investor’s interest evaluation.
Basis Week 1 Week2 Week3 Week4 Week5 Week6 Week7
Identificat
ion of aim
Developm
ent of
objectives
Gathering
informatio
n
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Collecting
data
Analysing
Discussio
n
Recomme
ndation
Conclusion
The business and the strategies implemented by the management, as well as strategic
practices, are to be understood. Whitbread is an old brand with various businesses under its
fold. Nevertheless, the businesses have devised the eco-business practice plans and have
implemented them in the business practice. The neutral energy consumption aspect is a new
but bold one where the business has shown its concern for changing the climate. The social
appeal towards such environment-friendly strategy is great as the people are getting more and
more concerned about the carbon emission and climate change problems globally. The sites
have their systems of managing the operational power and have achieved both water usage
and power use reductions.
The investors and consumers perception towards these steps is the point of research to be
conducted with a realism outlook. The collected answers will form the findings to suggest if
the strategies of eco-friendly business innovations have helped the business sustainability.
The long-term desire of the people to be with the business as consumer and investor would be
a great long-term achievement that the brand could get out of it. The reduction of cost is
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another great aspect of investor payments which is to be identified as well from the
stakeholders point of view.
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TASK 2
Implementing the research project within the specification and procedure
The research was conducted by the agreed number of people to understand the future of the
Whitbread business with its new strategic shift of operations. The Qualitative questions asked
to the people in the audience were answered with great details. Here the researcher could
gather 7 Consumer and three investors for the brand of Whitbread. The people chosen was in
random order where the interested people ready for this research study project participating
were asked to be in touch via a mass social media Whitbread related groups. The researcher
also approached the business and asked the local manager for the e-mails of few of their
investors and consumers to conduct the research upon. The care was taken where the
Manager ensured that the data was used strictly for educational purpose and confirmed the
participants via an e-mail clarification as a request to permit to share their Ids for such project
(Forsman, 2013).
The questioners prepared were based upon motive to access the attitude of the people,
especially the stakeholders like consumers and shareholders about their view about the
business. The hypothesis based on the preliminary Literature review is that the brand has
grown not only in its business diversity but not brings in a new and different diversity of it.
The food was one that had the major diversity that the Whitbread touched which now have a
social call. The research hypothesis suggests that the consumer loyalty and following for the
brand's niche products and outlets are one of the major reasons for its success. The local
adaptability, traditional inclusion in services made it special. The new innovative green
solutions in operations, as well as savings in energy and water, are two great achievements
which have drawn plenty of attention ("Promotions & Special Offers," 2017).
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The social backdrop suggests that the business can be stable and profit in the long term or
not. This is the key question that any stakeholder would have. Further, the brand employees
50, 0000 people who are a big number as well, making the question of stability deeper and
more relevant than ever before. The solution that the brand has brought in is innovative with
a great social appeal that would positively help the business develop a sustainable future and
enhanced growth in revenue in the long term. The audience for the research was selected
likewise to get the best of data inference suitable for findings deduction.
Data Collection
The questioner about the brand value, its future and its strategies adopted were at the crux of
both the qualitative and quantitative questions. 100 random answers collected from the social
media survey conducted were assembled. The Skype was used to interview ten people of
various locations who have their stakes as consumer or shareholder of the business.
The data was collated in a statistical form with the answers received both for multiple choice
or Yes or No answers. The percentile of the larger chunk determines the answer of the people
at large. The interviews were recorded and the data and information along with the
impression about the new green operation
The measurable factors are the one which was quantitative, and the one which is interpretive
is qualitative. Further, the data was taken in a random fashion with a mix of both without any
percentile determination. Nevertheless, 32% of the respondents were shareholders and the
rest consumers of Whitbread all across the UK in their outlets (Ferguson, Schmidt, & Souza,
2010).
Findings
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Climatic changes are being caused due to various reasons such as green house effect,
global warming, acid rain. These all issues creates various hazardous conditions for living
and non-living organisation. Some of the major impacts are like skin disease, eye rashes,
cancer, etc. along with this various other issues are able to being caused for non-living
organisation such as marble cancer, infertility of soi. These all problems are disturbing
various natural cycles also such as water, oxygen and nitrogen cycle. The climatic changes
are disturbing ecosystems due to which they are lifestyle of the human's are getting affected
and creating situations like flood, drought, acid rain, etc.
WhiteBread Plc uses corporate responsibility programme that is based on good together.
Under this program, company is attempting to maintain good relationship with all the
business stakeholders including suppliers, customers, shareholders, employees and others.
The strategy mainly targeted at driving sustainable growth through its regular business
operations.
Under the sustainability strategy, it attempted to reduce carbon emission through
following carbon management policy and carbon trust standards to control excession
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emission of harmful gases. Firm had also invested significant investment amount of 4m GBP
in order to derive resource efficiency for the sustainability business growth and progress.
Firm encourage their staff to turn off lights when not in use for optimum resource use and
also use cutting edge technologies for minimizing initiatives. It had taken initiatives under
Good Together plan to reduce carbon footprint for the purpose of maximizing environmental
performance. At the group level, it had designed environmental policy to achieve energy,
carbon and water targets. It is targeted to reduce its carbon footprint by 25% by the end of
year 2017. With the help of Good Together plan, it had minimized water consumption by
22%, waste landfill by 93% and 23% reduction in the emission of carbon. It recently
announced 100% use of renewable resources to achieve the targets of carbon reductions. In
2016, firm had scored B rating on its CDP climate change reporting plan. At the end of
2016/17, firm had diverted 98.8% of its wastage from landfill. Besides this, waste recycle
plan is also followed to reduce excessive wastage and promote integrity.
Evaluating the Research Outcome
The research conducted in both primary as well as secondary analysis has made the findings.
The qualitative data shows that the majority of 69% of the respondents feel that the
Whitbread is a successful innovator. 83% which is a major mass suggests that the business of
Whitbread is stable and have a future prospect of profitability. The growth and development
of the business with the new addition of eco-friendly technology are accepted well by the
market. The quantitative results also show that the model is an attraction with various
features like neutral energy concepts, renewable energy use conservation of waste and water
like activities (Cave, 2015).
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The research objective was to determine the investor’s attitude towards the business of
Whitbread to access its sustainability. The qualitative answers gave a vivid picture of the
stakeholders, specifically those chosen for the research. The people who were convinced to
give the interview were asked the similar questions, who were not part of the quantitative
research group. This was done to keep the findings unbiased. The answers given by the
respondents were similar to that of the qualitative findings when seen from an overall
perspective. The qualitative answers brought the new ideas like what else the brand may
regarding developing their business in the ecological design as well. The idea that came out
of this chat was that the brand might also venture into organic farming for few natural herbal
products in their eco-supportive initiatives ("Global Restaurant Investment Forum," 2014).
Further, acquiring from those suppliers who don’t follow the protocols of eco-friendly
operations were also suggested to keep the repute undiluted. The research data collected from
the study conducted were stored and analysed from the various perspective of the research
objective. The first was the innovation in eco-friendly operations and its effects on consumer
attraction and market buzz creation. This was successful as the results in both the studies
suggests. The further, addition to this information comes from the recent rise in share prices
for the brand's stocks on the London Stock Exchange. This is a positive sign for the steps
undertaken by the business to get the needed boost (Sharma, 2012).
The attraction has created a great attention to be drawn towards the brand and its businesses
to grow and become sustainable in the long term. Nevertheless, the interviewee in the
qualitative answer also emphasized in the sustenance of the brand and its dependence on
innovations and continuous improvements. This is a lesson that the business has to keep in
mind while implementing its future strategies and maintain the innovations to keep
happening.
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Recommendations
The business of Whitbread is extensive and of multiple offerings. The brand's uniqueness is
that all its products and offerings are unique in itself. Being a 300 plus year brand, the repute
has made them a real state specialise in eco-friendly building development as well as
conservation and use of renewable energy. The policies adopted are new and appealing to the
current audience who are getting more and more aware of the global warming as well as the
climate change issues. A Carbon free business operations is a welcome change in that matter.
Nevertheless, there are few recommendations that came from the qualitative interviews which
suggest the continuity of such innovation in business practices. The originality of the
businesses core is in maintaining the tradition of the place and its glory with the continuity of
the early practices, even after acquisition. This forms the key to the business diversity
legacies which have kept the brand alive for long and have only given in growth with new
acquisitions. The other ways to develop the new strategies are to give the stakeholders
present their views and ideas into practice. The farming of herbs for own internal use is one
such step where the multi-stair farming is the best way in a limited space.
Further, being careful about the product they serve is another aspect of long-term
sustainability. The 2013 scandal of horsemeat scandal is still very fresh. A bad repute to the
brand at this moment would be a great loss for the shareholders ("Whitbread makes food
pledge after horsemeat scandal," 2017). The consumers won’t trust the brand, and thus it is a
priority to keep the checks and balances for smooth and integrated functioning at the place
("Horsemeat scandal: Supermarkets 'share anger and outrage'," 2017). The awareness among
the general public is a corporate social responsibility that the brand may take up to develop its
overall image and appeal in the market. The continuity of such productive innovation like
water conservation, energy savings along with neutral energy use zones developed in the
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process can be used for the greater social good for which the brand would gain more respect
and recognition in among the hospitality fraternity itself.
The futuristic views of the people are very positive and have been consolidated by the
innovations and new idea that the brand Whitbread is propagating. This is a great leap
forward towards sustainability and growth in the future.
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TASK 3
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References
Annual Report. (2016). Whitbread.co.uk. Retrieved 8 February 2017, from
https://www.whitbread.co.uk/content/dam/whitbread/pdfs/investors/reports-and-
presentations/annual-reports/2015-16/Annual_Report_and_Accounts_2015_16.pdf
Cave, A. (2015). When Alan Parker moved Whitbread from beer to hotels no-one got it, they
do now. Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 8 February 2017, from
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/profiles/8081483/When-Alan-
Parker-moved-Whitbread-from-beer-to-hotels-no-one-got-it-they-do-now.html
Ferguson, M., Schmidt, G., & Souza, G. (2010). Special Issue of Production and Operations
Management: New Product Development, Innovation and Sustainability. Production
And Operations Management, 19(3), 370-370.
Forsman, H. (2013). Environmental Innovations as a Source of Competitive Advantage or
Vice Versa?. Business Strategy And The Environment, 22(5), 306-320.
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http://www.whitbread.co.uk/about-us/history-of-whitbread.html
Horsemeat scandal: Supermarkets 'share anger and outrage'. (2017). BBC News. Retrieved 8
February 2017, from http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-21468699
Hult, G. (2014). Market-Focused Sustainability: Market Orientation Plus!. SSRN Electronic
Journal.
Lee, S., Ahn, S., Park, C., & Park, Y. (2016). Development of a Resource Allocation Model
Using Competitive Advantage. Sustainability, 8(3), 217.
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Matobobo, C. & Osunmakinde, I. (2016). Analytical Business Model for Sustainable
Distributed Retail Enterprises in a Competitive Market. Sustainability, 8(2), 140.
Mazur, K. (2013). Isolating mechanisms as sustainability factors of resource-based
competitive advantage. Management, 17(2).
Promotions & Special Offers. (2017). Whitbreadinns.co.uk. Retrieved 8 February 2017, from
http://www.whitbreadinns.co.uk/the-carclaze/promotions
Sharma, N. (2012). Innovation in Green Practices: A Tool for Environment Sustainability and
Competitive Advantage. SSRN Electronic Journal.
Whitbread makes food pledge after horsemeat scandal. (2017). The Guardian. Retrieved 8
February 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/feb/26/whitbread-
food-chain-horsemeat-scandal
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