Swot Analysis of "Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004" written by Michael Beer, James Weber includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Whitbread Plc facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Knowledge management, Leadership, Strategy execution and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Whitbread Plc, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Whitbread Plc operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Whitbread Plc
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Organizational Development field.
4. Making a Organizational Development topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Whitbread Plc
Strengths Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Whitbread Plc in Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Whitbread Plc are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Whitbread Plc has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Whitbread Plc has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Whitbread Plc has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Whitbread Plc has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Strong track record of project management
– Whitbread Plc is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Whitbread Plc is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Innovation driven organization
– Whitbread Plc is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Whitbread Plc to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Whitbread Plc to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Learning organization
- Whitbread Plc is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Whitbread Plc is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Whitbread Plc
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Whitbread Plc does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Whitbread Plc has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Weaknesses Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Whitbread Plc 's lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Whitbread Plc is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Whitbread Plc needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Whitbread Plc has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Whitbread Plc has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Michael Beer, James Weber suggests that, Whitbread Plc is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004, is just above the industry average. Whitbread Plc needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Whitbread Plc has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Whitbread Plc has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 HBR case study mentions - Whitbread Plc takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Whitbread Plc has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Opportunities Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Whitbread Plc can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Whitbread Plc operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Whitbread Plc has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Whitbread Plc to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 case study. Whitbread Plc can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Whitbread Plc can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Organizational Development industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Whitbread Plc can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Whitbread Plc can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Loyalty marketing
– Whitbread Plc has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Whitbread Plc to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Whitbread Plc can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Whitbread Plc can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Whitbread Plc can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Whitbread Plc is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Whitbread Plc has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Whitbread Plc to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Whitbread Plc in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Organizational Development segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Whitbread Plc can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Organizational Development segment.
Threats Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 are -
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Whitbread Plc will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Regulatory challenges
– Whitbread Plc needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Organizational Development industry regulations.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Whitbread Plc business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Whitbread Plc
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Whitbread Plc.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Whitbread Plc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Whitbread Plc can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Whitbread Plc in the Organizational Development industry. The Organizational Development industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Whitbread Plc high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Whitbread Plc in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Whitbread Plc demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004, Whitbread Plc may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Organizational Development .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Whitbread PLC (B): Progress Through 2004 is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Whitbread Plc needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
