Whitbread partners with Cognizant for digital transformation
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 the professional services provider support its digital transformation. Services provided will include product design, product management and engineering.
“Cognizant has been a long-standing trusted digital partner for us. We are pleased to expand our partnership beyond engineering and delivery services to encompass the full spectrum of digital transformation,” said Harish Rajani, Whitbread’s director of change delivery and engineering. “Cognizant's thought leadership and cost-efficient nearshore-offshore delivery model perfectly complements Whitbread’s proposition.”
The renewed relationship will focus on realising Whitbread’s digital growth strategy which looks to deliver an enhanced customer experience. It also builds upon a major modernisation programme where Cognizant helped Whitbread replace its legacy property management system. The further digital transformation envisioned by Whitbread and Cognizant covers all aspects and interaction points of Whitbread customers’ journeys and will enable guests to manage their needs from pre-book, purchasing, check-in, stay and post-stay.
“We are proud to continue our close work with one of the UK’s most trusted and ambitious brands,” added Rohit Gupta, managing director UK&I at Cognizant. “Our collaboration to date has reimagined significant parts of Whitbread’s hotel operations, and we are looking forward to creating an attractive digital experience for their customers with a view to help drive bookings and growth across the internationally growing Premier Inn property portfolio.”