GROUP #4

7/13/19
WHITBREAD PLC (A) CASE ANALYSIS
GROUP MEMBERS:-
1. Sourabh Roy ————MP16036
2. Anshuman Anand ————MP17004
3. Bharat Bhusan ————-MP17009
4. Brajesh Singh ————-MP17011
5. Ramakrishna Namburi——-MP17033

1. Critically analyze the usefulness and flaws of strategic fitness process in overcoming the
problems in strategy implementation in Whitbread.

Usefulness of Strategic Fitness Process:

 The Strategic Fitness Process aided transforming Whitbread and its culture from a
unidirectional underperforming business to a multibusiness, high-performance organization
operating in more competitive markets.
 With senior teams developing consensus on their firm’s strategic and organizational direction,
this process guided the organization through a systematic diagnosis and change execution.
Some structured regular meetings with senior teams and SFP taskforce who are in turn selected
by senior team were conducted effectively to assess the current organization effectiveness.
Thus, the senior team involvement in the whole process guaranteed their consensus in
implementing the change.
 In Whitbread PLC there was a clear misalignment with the chosen strategy and the
environment. During the Strategic fitness process, the taskforce found that there is a strong
culture of consensus dominant in the organization which restricted the executives to question
the existing circumstances which made difficult for the senior teams to learn from lower levels.
This process enabled the leaders to accept the reality.
 In any strategic transformation, the strategy and behavior part shouldn’t fall apart. In this
process, with the help of external consultant, discussions with the leadership teams ensured
that different elements in the organization needs to be considered as a bundle to meet the bigger
strategic objective. This process ensured the synchronization between organization structure
changes which lead to behavior changes and the ultimate strategic management process.
 GROUP #4
7/13/19
WHITBREAD PLC (A) CASE ANALYSIS
 In a strategic transformation, one sided decisions and strategic directions fail when there is a
disconnect between the ground reality. In SFP, discussions happened amongst different level
of employees with access to valid data and external scholar consultant.

Flaws of strategic fitness process:

 The Strategic fitness process was initiated to strategize the current environment with the
organizational goals and values collaboratively. It became difficult for the taskforce to bring
whole organization on the same page as senior managers of different verticals have different
priorities and conflicting sometimes. Although the taskforce identified different possibilities
of organization structure and goals, emerging to concurrence of all senior leaders is a difficult
task. Strategic decisions require tradeoffs and these tradeoffs are to realize with subjective
preferences of senior teams.
 The change implementation require time and the SFP with strong co-ordination across different
teams at different levels and transparent exchange of resources, ideas and opinions, it cannot
be implemented in just few months of time due to inherent drag and culture that organization
has carried for years.
 The SFP has defined a firm stance on the organization with fixed outcomes and results
considering the environmental factors as well. However, the external environment is very
dynamic and may lead to higher risk to the organization. The process should be a continuous
improvement process.
 The SFP is more concentrated on the processes that are already established and not flexible to
change. This restricts the innovation and creativity in the employees for new opportunities in
the market and destructs the ability of the organization to develop new strategies for such
opportunities.

2. Critically evaluate David Thomas as a transformational leader.

 Thomas concentrated on lodging, eating out, and active leisure areas, new financial goals:
10% earnings growth , 5% sales growth, and 1% improvement return on capital, 11 point plan
for future direction. The idea of taking feedback from the SFP meetings is great but he is not
 GROUP #4
7/13/19
WHITBREAD PLC (A) CASE ANALYSIS
successful in using it effectively. The plan that he presented has provided the direction but not
the action plan about how to achieve it.
 He reduced the size of Whitbread’s HQ from hundreds to 40 and increased autonomy for
divisions.
 He encouraged open and honest communication between employees and executives,
empowerment and engagement across companies. In the whole change journey there is a gap
in communication and leadership which Thomas need to accept and act upon. He could’ve
formulated a concrete plan to track the performance and give/take effective feedbacks
 His style of leadership is collaborative, approachable, and consensus. However, by the end of
his term, he only planned the change and expected his successor to implement the change.
Walk the talk quality is missing in his leadership.
 The organization goals should be aligned with the department goals and vice versa. Thomas
was not successful in formulating a concrete plan to change the internal structure of the
departments.