Hospitality firm Whitbread has agreed a three-year digital innovation collaboration with global consultancy Cognizant. The professional services firm will now work to empower Whitbread’s growth ambitions across the UK and Germany. As the owner of Premier Inn, the UK’s biggest hotel brand, Whitbread is an organisation which offers budget accommodation to travellers across the country. With over 85,000 rooms in the UK and a growing pool of 10,500 rooms in Germany, the firm employs more than 38,000 people in Europe, and serves over five million customers every month. Even so, Whitbread has faced the same headwinds as the broader hospitality sector, with slow demand at the start of the year impacting sales. With total revenues 1% behind full-year results in the spring, the firm moved to shed 1,500 jobs in the UK, and shut more than 100 struggling restaurants. Having also conversely announced a rise in returns to shareholders, the company is moving to preserve its bottom-line by implementing a three-year £150 million cost-cutting drive. Part of that will also place greater emphasis on what Whitbread’s properties can do digitally instead of in person. To that end, Whitbread has expanded its digital transformation relationship with Cognizant, which will see […]
