Context of Business Report: Whitbread Plc, BABS Foundation Level

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Whitbread Plc, a UK-based budget hotel, within the context of its business environment and leadership. The introduction defines the business environment and outlines the report's scope, which includes internal and external environmental analyses. The main body begins with a SWOT analysis, identifying Whitbread's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. A PESTEL analysis examines the political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal factors impacting the company. The report then analyzes how these PESTEL factors influence opportunities and threats, and how Whitbread leverages its strengths to mitigate threats and weaknesses. Different leadership styles, including autocratic, democratic, and transactional, are compared and contrasted, with a focus on their suitability for Whitbread. The report also explores CSR activities, ethical responsibilities, and the challenges faced by modern businesses, and reflects on the learning gained through the report's completion. The report concludes with a summary of the key findings and provides a list of references.

Context of Business

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................3
SWOT Analysis of Whitbread Plc...............................................................................................3
PESTEL Analysis of Whitbread..................................................................................................4
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................4
Analysis of influence of PESTEL factors on Opportunities and Threats of Whitbread Plc........4
Whitbread's utilization of Strengths in nullifying Threats and Weaknesses affecting
Opportunities................................................................................................................................5
Task 3...............................................................................................................................................6
Comparing and contrasting different leadership styles................................................................6
Task 4...............................................................................................................................................7
Task 5...............................................................................................................................................7
Task 6...............................................................................................................................................8
Reflection on learning by doing this report.................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Business environment refers to the combination of internal and external factors
surrounding a business organisation and affecting its operations directly or indirectly.
Management must consider these factors while undertaking planning and strategy formulation in
order to suitable policies and strategies (Gandolfi and Stone, 2017). The present report is based
on UK based budget hotel Whitbread Plc which is a leading hotel of the hospitality sector. In this
report, in the context of Whitbread, internal and external environmental analysis will be
performed and along with this its leadership styles and ethics and responsibilities undertaken will
be discussed.
MAIN BODY
Task 1
SWOT Analysis of Whitbread Plc
Strengths
Highly skilled and motivated human resources
due to training, learning and developmental
programs.
High Brand equity and customer satisfaction
due to excellent CRM department.
Better services quality due to automated
activities.
Weaknesses
Low contribution margin and profitability
which below the averages of industry.
High attrition rate of human resources.
Poor organizational structure restricting
expansion.
Poor demand forecasting leading to missing
opportunities.
Opportunities
Emerging new markets due to governmental
trade agreement.
Higher revenue generation through online
channels.
Changing consumer behaviour has created new
streams for revenue and new categories of
products too.
Threats
Poor supply of innovative products causing
swings in sales revenue.
Threat of new lawsuits and environmental
regulations affecting product categories and
standards too.
Technological adoption by competitors.
Trends consumer buying behaviour causing

threats to physical supply model.
PESTEL Analysis of Whitbread
Political factors: Whitbread is affected by global political environment causing impact on its
growth due to political tensions in the country of existence. If there is a corrupt political system
in the country, then it leads to unstable operations of a company (Bower, 2018).
Economic factors: As a player in a hospitality sector, it has a greater impact of infrastructural
development and facilities available. Factors like exchange rate and inflation rate causes greater
impact on the company's profitability. Also, conditions prevailing in the labour market which
helps it in attracting talented workforce in order to improvise its performance.
Social factors: It is necessary for Whitbread to study demographic factors in order to select the
an appropriate market segment. Roles of gender must be considered by businesses to undertake
communication and marketing practices. Consumer buying behaviour prevailing in different
society must be considered by Whitbread to ensure proper selection of supply chain.
Technological factors: Whitbread needs to technological innovations in their operations in order
to remain competitive in the market. Like implementing social media marketing tools in to their
marketing practices will increases its brand image (Kristandl and Quinn, 2018).
Environmental factors: Consideration towards recycling and waste management, investing in
renewable technologies helps in creating value for the customers and society at large.
Regulations and attitude towards environmentally friendly products helps in engaging and
acquiring higher customer support.
Legal factors: Employees and consumer related protection act always helpful in framing
products and services related and employees related policies. Appropriate consideration towards
legal factors helps in enhancing brand image and acquiring customer loyalty.

Task 2
Analysis of influence of PESTEL factors on Opportunities and Threats of Whitbread Plc
Impact of political factors on opportunities and Threats: Government agreement has allowed
company to enter into newly emerging markets. Also, Taxation policy so adopted by government
of UK has made it possible for the company to enhance their profitability. Company has a great
impact of volatility in political climate across different markets of the world causing problems of
currency fluctuations which has a great impact on company's profitability.
Economic factor's impact on opportunities and Threats of Whitbread Plc: Lower inflation rate
and resulting reduced rate of interest allows for easy credit availing and stability in the market.
Economic Up stick and increased spending of customers allowing company to enhance their
market share by capturing new customers.
Social factors influencing opportunities and threats of Whitbread Plc: Changing customer
behaviour opening up new markets for the company and providing scope for creating new
streams of revenue by diversifying product categories (Gürel and Tat, 2017). Changing
behaviour of consumer in making purchase from online platforms are causing threat to
company's physical model of supply chain and also allowing for opportunity to grow their sales
by knowing better and serving better their customer's need.
Technological factors influencing opportunities and threats of Whitbread Plc: Whitbread can
adopt new technologies to set differentiated pricing strategy in emerging markets allowing it to
obtain customer loyalty by giving valuable propositions. Also, technological advancement
adopted by market disruptor or competitors causing threats to company's future in long term.
Whitbread's utilization of Strengths in nullifying Threats and Weaknesses affecting
Opportunities
Whitbread in order to fight with its threat of technological adoption by competitors undertakes to
integrate itself with technology companies by merging and acquiring it. Till Whitbread has done
many mergers and acquisitions to smoothen its operations and building strong supply chain. To
overcome the threat of poor supply of innovative products, Whitbread is utilizing its strength of
developing new and innovative products to fight with the problem of swings in sales revenue due
to imitation of innovative products by their competitors (Vlados, 2019). Whitbread is enjoying
strong brand portfolio which is helping it in overcoming the restricting factor that is its

organisational structure causing obstruction in the way of expansion. Whitbread has adopted
automated technology for offering quality services helping it in overcoming the threat of low
quality products offered by its imitators.
Task 3
Comparing and contrasting different leadership styles
Autocratic leadership style: Under this style, a single person holds all the power to make
decisions and group members are given rare opportunity to participate in sharing their views and
opinions while making decisions. Environment under this style of leadership is quite rigid and
highly structured. This style limits out of the box thinking and discourages creative solutions to
the problems. The advantage of this style is decision can be made in a quicker manner,
establishes a clear chain of command. It suitable where there is a need of strong controlling. The
certain disadvantages of this style are, it leads to discouragement of creativity among team
members and limited knowledge of individual decision maker can be applied. Therefore, there is
resentment and least morale among followers.
Democratic leadership style is such where members of a team are encouraged for sharing
opinions and views and then the final decision is taken by leaders. Members are rewarded for
their creative solutions to the problems (Gandolfi and Stone, 2018). The advantages of this
leadership style is it provides for more ideas in tackling certain problems and leads to motivation
and higher productivity of team members. Certain disadvantages of this leadership style are poor
decision can be taken due to inexperience individual's involvement in the decision-making
process.
Transactional leadership style is concerned with the goal setting and directing employees
on how their performance will be judged by informing what is demanded from them. Here
employees get regular feedback over their performance (Fiaz, Su and Saqib, 2017). Overall
efficiency and productivity of a concern can be improved through this style. It is quite inflexible
and opposed changes. The benefits of opting this style is it provides for rewards to those who are
self-motivated to perform well. The drawbacks of this style of leadership is it provides for
monetary incentives only and level of creativity is quite low as goals are already set by leaders.

For a hospitality concern like Whitbread Plc, the most appropriate style for leading a
team in an organization should be democratic style where both leaders and followers combinely
resolves a problem and found out creative solutions to the problems (Huertas-Valdivia, Gallego-
Burín and Lloréns-Montes, 2019).
Task 4
There are several challenges that has been faced by modern businesses which is considered to be
arisen from business environment surrounding modern businesses and to overcome these
challenges company can utilize different kind of leadership styles. Some challenges are being
identified that can be overcome by adopting particular leadership style.
Honing effectiveness: This challenge arises when a manager found it to be difficult to develop
certain skills in like decision-making, prioritization, critical thinking and time management in
order to speed up the performance of tasks so that the required level of effectiveness can be
achieved. In order to meet such challenges, a leader should adopt autocratic leadership style so
that work could be done in a most effective manner. As per the view of Al Khajeh (2018),
Autocratic leadership style is most suitable for businesses who are striving for achieving
effectiveness and to accomplish what has been assigned in the least possible time.
Guiding change: In order to implement change in an organization due to changes occurring in
the factors of business environment, it is advisable to adopt transformational leadership style as
authors defined and suggests that for obtaining improvements in performance by implementing
changes in culture and procedures, then transformational leadership style is considered to be the
most effective one.
Task 5
Whitbread Plc performs various CSR activities in order to fulfil their responsibilities in the
society it exists. Also, company follows the principle of “giving respect to all” which indicates
its system filled with the values in order to meet their ethical responsibilities. Their ethical
approach is based on four pillars that is, honesty, integrity, accountability and trust. Looking at

their obligations or responsibilities expected from them and their response towards the same, the
company undertakes to perform various CSR activities, so that they can response back to the
society where it exists in an efficient and effective manner (Park, Kim and Kwon, 2017).
 Company undertakes to improve community's living standard across the world by
providing them with opportunities to obtain employment and livelihood.
 Whitbread Plc ensures high nutritional value, hygiene and healthier product's distribution
to the community, so that their health and well-being should not be affected at all.
 Whitbread has adopted such a process that can reduce the environmental impact to the
great extent. They utilize disposal method to enhance recycling and reduce wastages.
 Whitbread has designed a program in order to include all the groups of communities in
their cycle of employment provision, so that social development can be ensured.
Task 6
Reflection on learning by doing this report
By adopting self-driven, self- motivated, organized and determined approach I am able to
accomplish my work in successful manner. I began with finding a most suitable organization to
address the requirement of this report and then start relating things and concept that are
theoretical with the practical things that has been happened in Whitbread Plc. As the report
requires to choose a UK based budget hotel, so I have chosen Whitbread Plc leading budget
hotel chain in UK. Then I have performed environmental analysis through the highly suggested
model that is SWOT and PESTEL model, where I get to learn about how different factors of
PESTEL model act as a strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for a concern. This report
allows me to learn and gain knowledge regarding different environmental factors that needs to be
taken care of while making decision related to the business. So, it helps me in learning how
businesses can utilize its strengths while fighting with the environmental – driven threats and
weaknesses of a business. Next, I have explained various leadership styles and relate the same
with the challenges that can came in the way of businesses. This helps me in understanding
various styles of leadership and their suitability in different challenging situations of a business.
Then, in the last task I have learnt the concepts of social responsibility, ethics and obligations
that need to be met by businesses in order to build their image in the society and for the overall

development of the business and society. Therefore, it helps me in learning how alternative
business practices can be helpful in earning higher profits and building better image in the
market and society.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that businesses and its management must
consider the environment in which it exists. Not just an environment, but also various factors that
are forming part of it and the resulting effect of changes in these factors over the business
performance and survival. Also, management of a company needs to consider which leadership
style they should adapt in order to improve and enhance their team and organizational
performance.

REFERENCES
Bower, J., 2018. Whitbread: routines and resource building on the path from brewer to
retailer. Management & Organizational History, 13(1), pp.1-23.
Kristandl, G. and Quinn, M., 2018. Internal accounting practices at Whitbread & Company, c.
1890–1925. Accounting History, 23(1-2), pp.206-230.
Gürel, E. and Tat, M., 2017. SWOT analysis: a theoretical review. Journal of International
Social Research, 10(51).
Vlados, C., 2019. On a correlative and evolutionary SWOT analysis. Journal of Strategy and
Management.
Al Khajeh, E. H., 2018. Impact of leadership styles on organizational performance. Journal of
Human Resources Management Research, 2018, pp.1-10.
Gandolfi, F. and Stone, S., 2018. Leadership, leadership styles, and servant leadership. Journal
of Management Research, 18(4), pp.261-269.
Fiaz, M., Su, Q. and Saqib, A., 2017. Leadership styles and employees' motivation: Perspective
from an emerging economy. The Journal of Developing Areas, 51(4), pp.143-156.
Huertas-Valdivia, I., Gallego-Burín, A.R. and Lloréns-Montes, F.J., 2019. Effects of different
leadership styles on hospitality workers. Tourism management, 71, pp.402-420.
Gandolfi, F. and Stone, S., 2017. The emergence of leadership styles: A clarified
categorization. Revista De Management Comparat International, 18(1), p.18.
Park, E., Kim, K. J. and Kwon, S. J., 2017. Corporate social responsibility as a determinant of
consumer loyalty: An examination of ethical standard, satisfaction, and trust. Journal of
Business Research, 76, pp.8-13.